Business as usual when nothing is normal

I was flying on Tuesday when I read about the shooting in Texas.

My heart shattered. I couldn’t stop thinking about my bonus daughter, Evie. She’s in fourth grade.

The next day, I was scheduled to give an in-person keynote speech in front of 600 people. It didn’t feel authentic to begin as I usually do, but I wasn’t sure what to say instead. Where do you even start to look for the words to talk about a tragedy like this? How do you reckon with a world where these tragedies keep happening? What can any of us say to each other?

Then, I thought, how would I start if I were talking to my team today? I knew exactly what that would look like: I would acknowledge what happened and share how I’m feeling. Then, I would create the space for the team to share how they’re feeling. I wouldn’t try to offer words of wisdom. I would simply make the space for us to lean on each other.

So, that’s what I did at my speech. I opened it by acknowledging what happened and how I was feeling. Then, I encouraged everyone to check in with their neighbor and share a hug if they wanted to. I made time for us all to connect personally before we dove into the reason we were there together.

At our team meeting the following day, we did exactly what I had imagined: We spent time acknowledging what happened and how we were feeling. We didn’t dwell on it, and we didn’t try to offer anything to each other beyond emotional validation and empathy. We didn’t look for the right words. We simply experienced the moment together.

I’m sharing this because you, like me, may have experienced some cognitive dissonance last week: Something horrific happened—again—and dozens more loved ones are mourning their losses. And yet, life continues for so many of us. We still have meetings. We still have appointments. We still have errands to run and to-dos to cross off.

But that doesn’t mean that we have to go about our business as usual. We don’t have to pretend like everything in the world is okay. We can create the space to acknowledge that terrible things are happening, and even though we might be terribly sad about that, we might also be excited about other things happening in our own lives. We might have things we’re looking forward to. We might have reasons to laugh.

And that’s okay. That’s what being human is all about: We each contain complicated, conflicting emotions. We are happy and sad. We are grieving and optimistic. We are angry and hopeful. It’s okay to feel all of these things at once. It’s what connects us.

If you’re the leader of a team, I encourage you to create space for your people to feel what they are feeling. That doesn’t mean that you have to have a long, serious, vulnerable conversation; it can simply mean starting a meeting a little differently than you normally would. It can simply mean acknowledging the whole of a person.

Sending you all lots of love as we face these hard times together.

Big hugs,

Kristen