Communication

Many years ago, when I was a manager in corporate, I had a team member who changed from being cheerful and open to sullen and withdrawn.

A few years back, my husband and I decided to divvy up particular jobs in the house. One of the jobs Bryan took on was emptying the dishwasher every day, which he did without fail.

Empathy and care are essential qualities for leaders in the best of times. In the past two years, they’ve been needed in spades as the pandemic has taken its toll on the mental and emotional health of employees and team members.

Since they introduced clay courts at our tennis club, it’s much easier to make a line call. If you call the ball out and your opponent disagrees, you can actually go over to the spot where the ball landed and find the mark. Conversation closed.

Covid-19 has meant many of my clients’ hopes and expectations of career progression have been sabotaged, at least for now. Appraisals have been postponed, promotions have been delayed, people that were going to be moving on or taking a sabbatical aren’t going anywhere which has caused bottlenecks.

The other day, I was playing in a group tennis coaching session. There were 6 of us and, at one point, we were playing 3 against 3, the winning side being the first to get to 21 points. My side started off winning several points in a row but then had a losing streak at which point the coach, Brian, piped up saying we’d “regressed”.

When I’m working 1-1 with professionals, particularly professional women, I often discover a Missing Conversation. For example, there was the finance manager who wanted to know her prospects for promotion yet was afraid to have the conversation with her manager because they might think she was being “pushy”.