Ask for help to zap the team and prevent pandemic panic

Normally this is a full day, an exhilarating and inspirational day with 12 CEOs, with me leading the charge on many fronts. COVID also now made it a challenging and stressful day. Where technology could be relatively simple before, it became super complicated overnight.

On this day, we had 10 CEOs properly socially distanced in the room and two dialling in on Zoom. I arrived an hour earlier than usual with my backpack full of extra technology and a plan A, plan B and even a plan C ready to go.

With the super helpful hotel staff, we set up plan A. It was elegant, sophisticated and worked fine until we added the speaker’s laptop and slide deck. We worked on it for quite some time, when I realised we had to go to plan B. Much less complicated and somewhat less elegant it worked fine and we thought we were ready to go. That was until the Zoom participants started arriving and had sound problems!

By now the in-person members started arriving. I had to leave the technology for the staff and welcome people, explain to them our safety rules, get them to fill out COVID declarations, get them to their tables six feet apart around the ballroom, etc. etc. … the list goes on and on and on. I was a busy boy there for a bit.

When I was finally able to check in again with the staff, I nearly had a moment of panic, the pandemic panic!

Have you had that feeling yet? It’s when you have to deal with so many extra stressors due to COVID that you have to dig deep to find a solution. I felt responsible for all that was going wrong in the room. I was worried for my members, that they would get great value. These are super successful people running multi-million dollar companies with tons of staff. I did not want to waste their time.

I realised that it was time for plan C. This was the least elegant of all three solutions, something that would require the help from everyone in the room – we all had to work together to make it work. So I plunged in. I declared to everyone what was going on. I asked for help. I assigned tasks.

Conversations stopped. Everyone pitched in and soon we had the problems sorted out. Whenever anything looked like it needed a solution, someone would just take care of it. This was a room full of leaders after all! It was a beautiful thing to see.

We ended up having a great day. Everyone, on zoom or in the room, could see and hear well. Everyone worked together to make the learning, the sharing, the committing to growth and so much more, exceptional.

Afterwards one of the CEOs remarked to me that it was great for him to see how much I cared for the people in the room and how I could problem solve. Just that one remark filled me with joy.

How are you doing with all the panic this pandemic is bringing. Coping? Need some help?

All you need to do, is ask.

I hope you found this helpful. More of the same can be found on nicohuman.com or by following me on LinkedIn, FaceBook or YouTube.

Thank you. Until next week!

And remember to ask for help …