As kids we used to play a game in our neighbor’s round, above-ground swimming pool. Ten or so of us would run in a circle until we got a good current going. Then, at a shout, we’d all turn and run the other direction. Laughing at the power of the current we’d created we’d struggle to move our legs. It was our very own slow-motion film until we got the current moving in the other direction. Then, when the current was going so fast that it was carrying us, someone would shout, and we’d turn again. We did this for fun!
Tomorrow’s client is doing the same thing with the direction of their company. After several decades, the market is requiring a new product and the workforce is causing a change in culture. It is a confusing and turbulent time. Processes, relationships with clients, and roles are all changing at once. It’s as if someone shouted “turn!”
Now, our childhood game was just that, a game, but I found myself drawing some lessons from the kids we were:
- Everyone turned wholeheartedly into the new direction although there were sometimes arguments about when to turn.
- We reveled in the feeling of turbulence, then in the momentum, then again in the turbulence.
- Those first few minutes of changing direction were hard work and we felt very uncoordinated until we got some momentum.
- It was the resistance against our legs, and the struggle to move, that created the current that would eventually carry us around the pool.
- We did this for fun!
Tomorrow will be intense. In some ways we are fighting for the life of this company. There are many perspectives about how and when to turn; there are bone-rattling questions to resolve about roles, about processes, about deadlines. Still, just as we were serious about our play as kids, it will help to have a sense of play as we are “adulting”. I’ll let you know how it turns out!
~ Lynda
Photo by Mariano Nocetti on Unsplash
