Lockdowns have forced us to stay at home. Overnight we worked with our colleagues through screens.
In this article, I will not address the global pandemic, everyone knows the context in which this change happened. This situation has completely turned us upside down and we do not yet have to find our new bearings.
For a few months, some really hoped to return to the situation before.
Over time, most realized and have accepted that we will not go back.
The question now is: how are we going to do it? How are we going to organize ourselves to work well together and maintain relationships?
I have read many articles giving advice on how to adapt to the new "normal".
Often, I saw an attempt to reproduce the old in a new setting. In short, it is to recycle the old in another environment, without changing anything fundamental.
I do not subscribe to that approach.
I think this crisis is an opportunity to invent a new way of working, communicating and cooperating on the basis of other values.
This need for other values is mentioned many times by the people and teams I work with. It is not said in this way, it is stated through the needs and expectations they express.
The lockdowns have made them aware of the importance of links, interactions, exchanges with their colleagues or simply with other people because some have found themselves alone - the current measures still cause many problems for a number. It is the lack that has made it possible to become aware of the importance of certain things. Before when we had it, we were not always aware of it. These and other realizations may not have occurred without this crisis.
The notions of connection, cooperation, support come back to each training and teambuilding. They have a direct impact on the actions that teams choose to implement.Whether these actions are related to cohesion or tasks.The methods I use to promote dialogue and find new actions to put in place allow deep and sincere exchanges, as well as the use of collective intelligence and creativity.
Managers tell me that this group experience has a lasting impact on communication, cooperation and efficiency. The situation in which we find ourselves requires other methods and tools from managers and employees.
For them to use these tools, I think, they need to have an experience that shows what these methods bring them concretely. They will certainly need follow-up and support for the future but at least they will have experienced something new.
Thus, they will have integrated that novelty –the unknown –can be a source of creativity, learning, confidence and can really bring concrete benefits both personally and collectively.
The unknown, thus became less terrifying and very different from the idea they had of it.
It concerns us all, indifferent areas of life. To achieve it we must live new experiences and let ourselves be transformed by them.
