Co-authored by Johnathan Nightingale
Just as we were early in the pandemic, we’re currently in the fog.
This is one we could see rolling in months in advance: At the end of a year of anxiety and suffering and “grimace” emojis, this presidential election is momentous. As we write this, the results are not obvious, just as many expected. But predicting the fog doesn’t give us a greater ability to see through it once it arrives.
In the fog, simple help, so let’s keep it short: Here are three things bosses need to do this week, regardless of what happens over the next few days.
Find some burst capacity
Take a look at your calendar and imagine a bucket of water. Every existing thing on your calendar is an amount of water in the bucket. Staring down a wall of seven-minute Zoom meetings? We’re gonna call that 100% full.
Anywhere you see empty space, that’s your burst capacity. And you’re going to need more of it than usual.
You don’t need to completely clear the decks. You don’t necessarily need to dump the bucket upside down and cancel all your meetings. But you do need to make space in case something crash-lands. Aim for at least 30% capacity. Push the nonurgent things to next week or beyond so that you’re ready if the unexpected comes up.
And if you’re wondering what the heck might crash-land, that brings us to point number two.
Know your people might be raw
Bosses, you are gonna get this one wrong. And it’s not your fault. But you should be aware.
Some of your team finds comfort in work. They may be the same people who told you so back in March. When the world turned upside down, it was reassuring to them to slot into work. It was familiar. It gave them something to do. It felt like a port of calm when so much was out of control.
Some of your people are just so done right now. They have spent eight months and counting in an unending stress position. They have been doom scrolling a lot. They are working from home, sometimes in small spaces, often alone. And for many, it’s been months since anyone gave them a hug. They are not okay.
As folks come online, you will have people who do not give a shit about politics. And people who do but don’t want to talk about it. And people who do and do want to talk about it. And the hard news for you is that you’ll have no idea who’s who. They aren’t labeled with a slack emoji. So you’re gonna want to proceed with caution.
But you can listen for unusual levels of conflict, or missed deadlines, or workload stress. You can choose not to attribute those things to underperformance when you hear them. And as you get a sense of who needs what, you can help people clear their schedules. Or give them more stuff to distract them, if that’s what they need.
This is a week to reach for empathy before accountability. Not because accountability doesn’t matter, but because you’re at risk of mistaking hurt humans for bad employees. That’s a mistake you don’t want to make.
Lead
We need our boss to lead. We need that every day, but especially today. We need you to connect the dots, see us where we are, and remind us that there’s meaning to the work we do. Easier said than done, we know. But if you’re not sure how to start, here’s a template:
- First, acknowledge what’s happening in the world. In an email, in a team Slack channel, whatever makes sense. A hard part for many people is knowing whether they can talk about it at all.
- Remind everyone of the support available. Is time off an option? Is deferring deadlines is an option? Do you have benefits that support mental health? Are you able to open up office hours or just be in an open call for people to drop in? You can’t accurately predict who will need these reminders, so give them to everyone.
- Last, and this is the hardest part: Give us a sense that you get it. And, ideally, that the company does, too. This is the hardest because you might not, or the company might not, and it won’t help to fake it. But if you do, we need to hear that. Companies are made of people and it matters a lot to know whether those people get it or not.
This fog will lift. But while we wait for the fog to lift, expect to drive a little slower, and take a little more care.