#49 Missing Sock

There are many great mysteries in life. 

One of my favorite comedy shows as a kid was Monty Python. In 1983, Monty Python's The Meaning of Life premiered as a musical comedy sketch. The story starts with a group of fish casually swimming together in a posh restaurant's seafood tank. All is fine until they look at the customers outside of the tank and see their friend Howard being eaten, leading them to ask the question what is the meaning of life? 

The lingering pandemic has caused many people to ask precisely this question, and others like it.

What matters most?

What is my purpose?

And then there are the other mysteries in life like what happened to my other sock?

We have all experienced this phenomenon – you open the dryer door and only one of the pair of socks you put in is now in there or you open your sock drawer on a stressful morning, try to find a pair of socks, and discover that the ones you have don’t match.

Did the dryer eat it? Is it stuck under the coach? Did the dog think it was a new pull toy?

Having just one sock in a pair is the feeling I had this year when writing my articles. I was missing out on having a partner, adding an alternate point of view, and most of all, bringing my readers along for the ride.

I felt more like my writing became an unintentional “Go it Alone” strategy even though my vision for how these articles would unfold encompassed interviewing people, creating short videos or podcasts.  My articles would have benefited from more collaboration.

The same is true for businesses. COVID forced many of us to pivot to new ways of working, raising the need to collaborate as an imperative for long-term success.

This HBR article, 7 Strategies for Promoting Collaboration in a Crisis, highlights lessons learned from the 2008 financial crisis.

“Records from the project and financial databases showed how partners worked before, during, and after the crisis and their relative performance outcomes. The results were stark. The most highly collaborative workers — the top 10% — grew their business during the crisis and continued that upward trajectory afterward (see the green line).

The performance of the middle group (second and third deciles) declined slightly during the crisis, but their revenues started to recover within a year (see the yellow line). People in the third group (the bottom 70%) hunkered down and dramatically reduced their collaboration with others.

They guarded their clients and hoarded work. The revenue generated by this group contracted during the crisis and still had not recovered five years after the recession had ended.”

Dirty Dozen lesson #4 – Don’t Go It Alone

Of the seven strategies in the HBR article, numbers 3 (Connect with the front lines), 4 (Reinforce the business goal’s and purpose frequently), and 6 (Play to your strengths) resonated with me as I reflected on this past year of writing. The missing sock metaphor seems to fit quite well since my plans to have a collaborative approach fell short.

Two things got in my way.

1)     I let my need for speed get in the way. Finding the time to collaborate with people was difficult and became even more challenging when COVID hit. I found myself losing patience, and honestly running out of time, to include others.

2)     I shied away from the video and podcast ideas because I wasn’t good at it. It was uncomfortable for me and became another “thing to do” on the endless list of things to do. 

If I were to repeat this adventure next year, and I’m not sure if I will, I would focus on finding my missing sock and take a more collaborative approach. 

Are you missing a sock?