What Would You Do? Forum considerations during COVID

Joe:  Hi Adam.  About tomorrow’s Forum meeting.  A kid in my son’s school class tested positive for COVID.  We are not showing any symptoms, but we all got tested just to be sure.  We won’t have the results for another three days though.

Adam:  Oh wow, Joe.  I hope the test turn out negative.  You dealing with it OK?

Joe:  Yeah, thanks.  I think we are all OK, but I should take a pass on tomorrow’s meeting, so I don’t risk getting you all sick.  And I know everyone was looking forward to meeting in person, so I don’t want to ask you all to do a Zoom meeting instead.

Adam:  Uhm…..

One of the Forums I am a member of just experienced this situation before our first meeting of the season.  As soon as I heard it, questions started popping up in my head…

Do we let Joe miss the meeting?

If so, do we penalize him for the absence per our norms?  If we penalize him, are we encouraging people to “lie” to the Forum about potential health risks?

Do we change the meeting to a virtual-only meeting so Joe can participate, even though everyone really wants to be in person? 

Do we let the Joe video conference in while the rest of us are in person?  No, blended virtual / in-person meetings don’t work well.  We always forget the one person online.

Do we ask Joe to reschedule the meeting, even though we REALLY want to meet since we have not been in person since February?  

So… what would you do?  

One of the most important indicators of Forum health I look for as a facilitator is the willingness and ability of a Forum to have open and honest communication with each other… about anything and everything.  And, having and (periodically) discussing norms is the most efficient way to have open and explicit expectations of each other which foster a safe container in Forum for vulnerability and trust.

As many of our Forums start meeting in person again, it’s important to make sure that all our members feel safe and secure.  I encourage you to have conversations about what your expectations are with each other, especially around issue pertaining to the world of COVID, such as:

• How will we handle a situation like the one above?

• What is the expectation of members to communicate potential exposures to the Forum, including if someone is just feeling under the weather?

• What is everyone’s risk tolerance with COVID and social distancing?  

• Are we meeting in person?  Virtually?  Following social distance guidelines?  Outdoors?  Indoors?  Wearing masks? 

• And, how are we going to manage it if people’s tolerances are different?  (I believe in the Least Comfortable Person Method – whoever in the Forum has the lowest tolerance for risk set the safety rules for the meeting.  Works really well for family as well… major stress reducer!) 

Similar to how a Forum deals with a confidentiality breach, these are expectations that are best discussed before an issue happens.

And while I cannot provide the “best” way for your Forum to answer these questions – as every Forum has a different definition of acceptable risk, has different health concerns, and is under different jurisdictional rules for social distancing – you are probably wondering what we did… so…

Joe skipped the meeting (and ended up testing negative!).  We did not count the absence against him.  Going forward we agreed that we will not accept a blended in-person/virtual meeting – it has to be one or the other.  We will all communicate potential health risks and if we are not feeling well to the Forum prior to meetings, that member will attempt to reschedule if a situation occurs.  And, we will not count misses due to potential COVID exposures against members per our allowed absence norm.

Food for thought.  Have a great 2020-2021 Forum year!

#ForumSensei

Respec

In the famous words of comedian Rodney Dangerfield, “I don’t get no respect!”  Some days (even some weeks, months and years) can feel like that.  It can seem like everyone is arguing with you, giving you a hard time, complaining, make decisions or mistakes that make your life difficult (and this can be before you even leave the house in the morning!).  Even if we are the most tolerant, zen-like, of people (think Gandhi), we can lose our patience every once in a while if the conditions are right – tired, not feeling well, stressed.  Especially stress.  Chronic stress will wear down the most stoic of people.  And what’s worse?  Feeling like people are not giving you respect just adds to your already high stress levels!

What is respect?  Respect is having consideration for yourself and others.  This could mean respecting people’s privacy, their personal space, belongings, perspectives, philosophies, physical ability, beliefs and personality.  It is also acting in honor of yourself and your values.

Why should we respect our colleagues?  Just some of the benefits of respecting your co-workers are it builds trust, enhances your working relationships, helps you enjoy work more, increases job performance, decreases stress, and improves teamwork, workflow and output.  It’s the “grease” that makes life less “squeaky”.

Respect is one of those things that is hard to gain and very easy to lose.  Knowing what to do to show your respect for others is vital.  It’s important that you pay attention to people to ensure you are showing respect in the way they want to be respected because if you get it wrong it could have the opposite effect.  We cannot necessarily control what we think and feel (unless we are a monk… and even then…), but we can control how we act.    

It’s the Golden Rule: treat people with dignity, and in the way you want them to treat you.  If you don’t want to be yelled at, don’t yell at others.  If you want others to be on time, be on time.  If you want people to show you respect, show it to them.  If this is the only thing you remember to do, you will do well.  Here are some other ideas of specific ways to show respect to others:

• Pretend your children or parents are watching when dealing with a difficult person or frustrating situation.

• Be aware of what is going on around you and offer support others when they are stressed; do a little something special for then – run an errand, answer the phone or just do something small to go the extra mile and spread good cheer.

• Start each morning with a cheerful greeting, say thank you, mind your manners, give compliments and positive feedback and validation for a job well done.

• Stress, anger, frustration, complaining and venting can bring everyone down. Limit with who and where if you need to do this. A positive attitude goes a long way.

• Watch your communication: choice of words, tone of voice, body language etc. People know when they don’t all match.

• Some people will perceive how you respect others but how you treat yourself and your things - take care of yourself, take care of your things, keep your personal spaces clean and tidy.

• Be an active listener, genuinely care about others; ask for opinions and input – it shows you care what people think.

• If you’re in the wrong….apologize.

“It's easy to take a gun and annihilate your opposition, but what is really exciting to me is to see people with differing views come together and finally respect each other.” – Fred Rogers

“R-E-S-P-E-C-T, Find out what it means to me.  R-E-S-P-E-C-T, Take care, TCB…” – Aretha Franklin

#ForumSensei

To Be, Or Not To Be (Productive

Have you ever wondered where the 40-hour work week came from?  In 1926, Henry Ford, American industrialist and founder of Ford Motor Company, conducted experiments with interesting results: when you decrease your daily working hours from 10 to 8, and shorten the work week from 6 days to 5, your productivity increases!  But…what is productivity?  You will hear people use the words productivity, efficiency and effectiveness interchangeably to describe the same thing…when they are really not. 

Efficiency is achieving the maximum desired results with the least amount of wasted time or energy.  Efficiency is important because the less time it takes you to complete a task, the more tasks you can complete in a day.  But, if you do them so fast that you make mistakes, the consequences and any rework cancel out the time you saved. 

Effectiveness is the degree to which something is successful in producing the desired result.  Effectiveness is important because people care about quality and have high expectations that things are done right the first time.  But, if it takes us too long to do it right, we will not respond quick enough for customer expectations and lose any advantage we might have had for being right. 

While both of these have an impact on productivity, they are not by themselves being productive.

Productivity is simply the rate at which work – the desired result – is completed.  In business this is a critical concept because it is the driving force behind how competitive and successful we can be.  For example, if our employees can ship 4,000 boxes per hour and our competitor’s employees can only ship 3,000 boxes per hour with the same quality, we will have an advantage over them. 

Balancing the two concepts of efficiency and effectiveness is important to driving the best competitive advantage in the marketplace one can have.  Productivity is all about working smarter, not necessarily harder.

Things To Do:

1. Track and limit how much time you spend on tasks – most people don’t realize how much time things take them when they are focused.  Awareness is the 1st step.

2. Take regular breaks – it’s important to walk away from our work once in a while and have some alone time.  We often find the solutions when we’re not searching for them.  90-minute intervals are a good rhythm. Even more, make some of them exercise breaks. It improves your mood and your ability to focus.

3. Set self-imposed deadlines – giving yourself a deadline helps keep you focused.  Make them in advance of the actual due date to give yourself cushion.

4. Follow the "two-minute rule" – if you see a task or action that you know can be done in two minutes or less, do it immediately.

5. Just say no to meetings – before booking a meeting, ask yourself whether you can accomplish the same goals or tasks via email or phone. Even more, hold standing meetings or use other methods to spur creativity (or encourage brevity) during meetings.

6. Quit multi-tasking – multi-tasking is a myth. Focusing on one task lets you get it done quicker and with less errors.

7. Be proactive, not reactive – have a plan of attack at the start of each day, and then do your best to stick to it. Even more, take advantage of your commute - plan your day, return phone calls, etc. (but no reading emails or texting if you’re diving!).

8. Minimize interruptions (to the best of your ability) – getting back on track is a time drain. Even more, turn off notifications – don’t let email, voicemail and text rule your day; build in time to check email and messages on your schedule not others.

9. Give yourself something nice to look at – pictures, screen wallpaper, etc.  Increasing your happy quotient improves your productivity. Even more, take time to laugh - make a joke, share a funny story.

10. Give up on the illusion of perfection – perfectionists spend more time on tasks than required. They procrastinate and wait for the perfect moment, and they miss the big picture being too focused on small things.  If it is the perfect moment, you’re too late.  The perfect moment is NOW!

“Nothing is less productive than to make more efficient what should not be done at all.” – Peter Drucker

“Focus on being productive instead of being busy.” – Tim Ferris

#ForumSensei