The strengths and messiness of being human in 2021
As 2021 comes to a close, CVL Senior Consultant Tamara Mapp-Borren reflects upon the year and shares some of her insights to take into 2022.
“As you head towards the end of this year, send your last email and shut your laptop down, I encourage you to take 5 minutes and leave yourself a note to come back to in the New Year… What was messy? What was awesome? And what things will you take forward with you?”
The Messiness
Today we close our CVL offices for the year and a line is drawn under 2021. I’m tired and hurtling towards the end of the year looking a lot like I’ve slept in a gorse bush, lacking a haircut, given up on work attire, and eating biscuits from the packet on my desk as I send emails with typos I can no longer see.
310 days ago I joined CVL with a wonderful team day in Wellington. Less than a week later Auckland went into lockdown for a period of time. 120 days ago I bought my team together in Auckland for the first time. Less than a week later Auckland went into lockdown (again).
Ignoring any potential correlation between team days and lockdowns, nearly 40% of my role this year has included navigating restrictions, dealing with stressed and anxious people, learning new ways of working, and building relationships across dispersed teams. I know I am not alone with this experience.
With an optimistic list of things to complete before the end of the year - a list taller than my children’s bunk beds - I’m sitting at my desk, taking a moment to appreciate just how awesome humans are.
Leadership reflections
This week Aleisha Coote and I ran a free open workshop on The Strengths & Messiness of Being Human. The intention was to provide a safe space to reflect with other leaders and to share, learn and spark new ideas after a tough year.
This week we also connected as a CVL team across our Wellington and Auckland offices, to celebrate our year and our work with thousands of leaders across Aotearoa. Here are some of my favourite 2021 reflections…
The Strengths
2021 has given us some wonderful moments that will shape how I lead into the future:
People before process. The ground has shifted from a business focus on operations and performance, to the people that keep our businesses and country ticking. “What support do you need?” is a genuine question I hear frequently now - even if we’re not entirely sure of the answer ourselves yet
Adaptively creative. “How did we do that?” We’ve made things happen this year we never thought possible. The creativity shown by leaders across the world to find new ways of connecting, new ways of working, and new opportunities, is phenomenal. Even on the toughest of days, we’ve somehow picked ourselves up again, and learnt from the fails to see what’s possible, and most importantly, we’ve kept adapting.
Commitment. I have witnessed so much commitment from people through so many different circumstances – commitment to make things work, commitment to each other, commitment to see things through. This doesn’t happen by accident. We choose it moment by moment. And relationships become stronger because of it.
Giving. On our recent team day designed to celebrate our efforts in 2021, the CVL Team chose to give back and started the day buying gifts for others and delivering them to the City Mission. From what I’ve seen we’re not alone – as we’re “all in this together” rhetoric grew, so did the reaching out to others in our communities.
Asking for help. The idea of asking for help can often be seen as a weakness and I’ve never been great at it. This year I have asked for more help than I’ve ever done in a workplace, and equally, I’ve loved the feeling of helping others when they’ve needed it. This is the strength of collaborating together.
Talking about wellbeing. 2.5 years ago in a previous role, I introduced the idea of a wellbeing strategy to an executive team who had some genuine concerns about the role workplaces should play, the return on investment, and the potential blurring of personal and work selves. Covid-19 has blown this conversation open and highlighted how important our mental and physical health is. It’s a silver lining to hear these discussions as common place in workplaces now.
In-person vs virtual. We have created some life changing moments online this year and stretched what’s possible for an interactive virtual activity (think feet in the air behind desks!?). Equally, the feedback from my team as we saw each other for the first time in 4 months was how important it is to see people out from behind a screen – the organic side conversations, the nuanced expressions, the seeing a whole body not just the head! Our relationships deepened in a matter of hours. As leaders build their teams in 2022 how might we choose our in-person moments for the most impact, supported by out new online world?
Laughter. I have laughed hard this year, at myself, with my colleagues, my kids have laughed at me, and I’ve cry-laughed as we’ve ridden the Coronacoaster. The beautiful mess that’s been my work and home has collided, has given me the opportunity to be more real, more vulnerable, let go of perfection and laugh more.
Thinking forward
There are four ideas I’m taking forward with me into 2022:
Doing things you love with people you love. Who we spend our time, and what we do with our time, are so important. I’m consciously committing to doing more things I love with the people I love.
Pace and space. I can work at pace but to do it well I also require space. I’m committing to increasing my awareness of what I ask of myself and of others. Do we have the right mix to be sustainable as a business and as humans?
How lucky I am. I’ve learnt what I need in life is far more basic than I thought. I’m committing to keeping things simple, with an increased focus on how I can give to others around me.
Keeping things real. For those that have seen my background as I’ve led online workshops this year, it looks like an office right? The photo below shows the reality – a clever kiwi made desk built to fit in a 1.5m gap between a window and bunk beds. My ‘office boundary’ starts when I step into that space and what you get is me, post-it-notes stuck to a bunk bed, and some of my best work to date. It’s not perfect but it’s real, and that’s the best of us as humans.
As you head towards the end of this year, send your last email, and shut your laptop down, I encourage you to take 5 minutes and leave yourself a note to come back to in the New Year…
What was messy? What was awesome? And what things will you take forward with you?
