“Happy Birthday to me!” Yup! Its that time of year once again. As usual I choose this as a moment to reflect on the year that has been and the year yet to come. However, there was a tinge of frustration as this year was another birthday within the confines of Covid induced lockdown measures. I am not going wallow, as even though it wasn’t the celebration I would have liked, it was still a pleasant day.
My thoughts navigated across my pandemic experience. I’ve seen emotions in myself that lifted me and also disappointed me. I have seen others demonstrate almost caricatured alter egos as they wrestle with the bubble to the surface of their inner turmoil. Yet, for all of this I recognize the opportunities that the situation has presented me with and likewise seen others seize.
I’ve always been a learning sponge, and if you’ve read my last blog post, you will know that I’ve been exploring the important of emotions for organizational and individual benefits through the Emotional Culture Deck (ECD). I’m discovering knew and progressive ways to use it and over the past month or so I’ve undertaken several sessions with individuals using the ECD as I rekindle my love affair with its potential.
I undertook a leadership focused emotional exploration with a colleague, viewing the relatively recent leadership position they had taken on. One interesting insight for me came when we recognized that there are multiple layers of leadership engagement present. Leaders in organizations do not lead the same way for everyone and different lenses can reflect differently. Here we discovered disparity between immediate team and broader organization, and it prompted a deeper dive to discover the differences for both audiences’ expectations and emotional engagement. The key discovery of our conversation was to recognize the role of leader of the leadership team needs a nuance of approach compared to the broader group.
I’ve also introduced the ECD tor some individuals who are not leaders, but individual contributors and solopreneurs who kind of lead themselves and are led by others. Without sharing too much personal information, one individual had been on something of a rollercoaster ride of emotional challenges. Fortunately, the activity did not prompt too many dark memories, confusions, or general frustrations. However, the individual recognized how many emotions they choose to ignore, box away and generally avoid coming to the surface and this exercise made them and the moment of light was recognizing the power of owning these emotions was greater than the power of hiding from them.
I’m thrilled these situations brought opportunities of discovery for the individuals, but it also prompted me to do the same. I have been fascinated in the way we work together in a virtual environment yet still carry forward our values, beliefs, and general mindset. Patterns of thought that have been built up over many years outside of a virtual environment easily framing the virtual interactions. It has always been important to me that people find value from interactions that can release their potential. All the above interactions took place remotely, yet I successfully created space for them to discover their opportunities. Eighteen months ago, I would never have considered undertaking an activity like the ECD within a virtual environment. The lack of choice has forced us to adapt and evolve but also be true to ourselves in delivering our desired outcomes of facilitation.
The pandemic has forced us to consider things in new and different ways, whether it’s a birthday celebration, coaching session or client discovery meeting. This in turn has presented opportunities to explore new and different ways. Connecting this to your emotional response mechanism can be a very fruitful activity, to learn and discover yet more opportunities that would otherwise have gone by without exploration.
I leave you with some challenge points to ponder.
- What have you done anew this past year to realize your potential?
- What opportunities have you embraced during the pandemic?
- Has this year heightened your emotions, or challenged you to discover them?
- Are you a better person today then you were 12 months ago?
Here are a few ways you can learn more about The Emotional Culture Deck:
- Visit www.theemotionalculturedeck.com
- Download a free Lo-fi PDF version of the deck at the website, click here
- Complete The Emotional Culture Deck Online Masterclass course like I did here
- If you still have questions, feel free to contact me here for a chat
#emotionalculturedeck #proelephantrider #ridersandelephants #emotionalculture
Very interesting!
the pandemic has made us improve and change in so many ways, especially in communicating.
Nice reflection.
thanks for sharing
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