COVID 19

We live in interesting times. I was terrified by George Orwell’s 1984 and when 1984 the year rolled round, I was a bit clenched about the terrors to come.

In 1999 I was ready for Y2K and the collapse of society through computer meltdown. In 2001, I saw the planes going into the towers and I said to my brand new partner Nicki – “the world is going to change from now on and it won’t be pretty”.

MERS and SARS came and went and I thought we have dodged a bullet. Ebola happened and I thought we dodged an atom bomb. Obama happened and I thought that this might be a turning point fort humanity.

Trump happened and I had my nose bloodied by the reality that for every action there is an equal reaction.

Now we have COVID-19. It’s a tricky beast because it seduces us into thinking that it only affects old people and for many, that’s ok. They’re old, who cares? I’m ok. But then some young people unexplainedly die and then there is that gnawing doubt again.

It’s the doubt of the person who is only looking for their own safety and salvation. Am I going to be ok? But then there are those who look at that as being secondary. They don’t think about themselves. They think about those who are more vulnerable, more susceptible to harm and they think, what can I do to help.

These are the people we now revere. Well, those of us who think at all do. It is a parable. It’s a glimpse at how we might all conduct ourselves in the future.

In a business environment, much is talked about respect and concern for the welfare of “the staff”. Mostly it is driven by HR, or the People Team or whatever euphemism is de rigeur. It seldom seeps into the bones of a business. It tends to be bumper sticker and shallow.

It’s not that people who run businesses are bad. It’s just that there are so few examples of how being kind, generous, honest, open and understanding fit in a business setting.

Yet, I am here to declare that after decades of working in businesses large and small, successful and failing, I have observed and had reinforced countless times that the secret sauce to business success is not smarty pants new ideas, giant cash injections or anything whizz-bang. It is creating an environment of suppliers, customers, team members and leadership who are all on the same journey.

A good business is like a family. I want to go to work feeling loved, respected, valued and that I am making a contribution. I want to be recognised for that with promotion, pay rises, public acknowledgement of my contribution and a sense that what I say matters. I’ve employed a lot of people in a lot of different circumstances and that has bever not been the case.

COVID-19 has given us all a golden opportunity. We can be amping to get back to what we had or we can take this opportunity to take a moment, smell the flowers and reassess what is important.

I’ll tell you what I’m thinking, feeling and doing. I want to do something that makes a difference. I see people around my community hurting, confused, frightened and sometimes aggressive and angry. For me, aggression and anger generally comes with fear of the future, fear of the past and fear of the present.

I’m in a golden place. I have lost my much loved job in an iconic NZ business and I feel the fear and the uncertainty that comes with that. But, I have a wife who crazily believes in me, so I’m swallowing my fears and focusing on what I have to contribute to a bruised world.

The thing that keeps me human is knowing I have made a contribution and so I have gathered a few trusted colleagues around me and I’m about to go back out in the world and try and do some good.

I want to help businesses get back on their feet. Not everyone. Businesses that hurt the environment and exploit people don’t interest me unless they really want to change. Businesses that have good hearts and broken bits are what interest me and my great team of loving, compassionate and extraordinarily experienced experts.

This looks like an ad for a business. In a way it is, but on another level, it is just a stake in the ground. We have gone through a global trauma. It is better in NZ now but don’t be fooled. The ripples will go on for years.

I want to leave a world to my kids that I can be proud of. It ain’t looking good right now. People with good hearts and decent intentions need to be recognising each other and coming together to ensure that this is not just something we say.

There are many people out there who see this current situation as an opportunity to exploit. Let’s not let that happen. Come together with people of good heart and let us make this shitstorm something that progresses us as a society.

Nowhere is this more important than in business. Choose looking after people, choose being kind and generous and compassionate and if you own a business, I promise it will rescue your bottom line.

Your people are a complex network. Suppliers, customers, staff, the families of all those people. They all look at you and judge how you behave and how you treat their people.

COVID-19 has provided us all with a golden opportunity. We can devolve into our most self-absorbed selves or we can tap into the extraordinary energy, love and generosity that this crisis has exposed.

I’m recommending that this opportunity to be real may be short-lived. Now it’s time for the shameless pitch. Go to regenerationhq.co.nz and see if we can help you make this shit sandwich into a gorgeous layer cake.

We are brand new, so if the site isn’t there, be patient for a few days. Blame the virus.