Juggling Priorities in the COVID World

Yes, that’a a picture of me juggling pins as part of our weekly “TGIF” connect event that has been a cornerstone of the Cloudreach culture for years. We’ve been celebrating TGIF as a means to bring our distributed workforce together on a weekly basis to drive a sense of community and fun. Of course this has all changed like everything else in our lives due to COVID thus the virtual learn-to-juggle gig with the Bose headphones and screen grab from the Hangouts session. My friend Sydnee was kind enough to take the shot and send it my way with a suggestion “hey, perhaps you can spin a story related to juggling and coping with COVID” so this is my go! 

So what does juggling have to do with coping with COVID? Let’s start with the simple direct relationship. The definition of juggling is “Keeping one or more objects in the air at all times” (sourced from Brooksters Dictionary). Depending on your hand-eye coordination this can be relatively straightforward for a short period of time, but it becomes quite challenging over a longer duration. For example, the World Record for continuous juggling of 3 balls is just over 12 hours and the record for 3 clubs is 3 hours and 43 minutes (I may have to take a shot at the record for clubs!). Now think how we’ve been affected by COVID. It seemed relatively straight forward at the beginning, but as the days pass it’s becoming quite the grind. We’re all experiencing the wear and tear in various degrees, but as I tell my team “We’re all going to hit the wall at some point.” Just like you’re destined to drop a ball sooner or later. 

The question is how do we manage through this extended phase coping with COVID as a team? As a community? As a family? And that’s where the more nuanced corrections between juggling applies. When you juggle you need to be aware of the state of all the objects but place a specific focus on the most important item at that period of time. For example, the toss of each pin is critical as you need to throw each one on the right trajectory, with the right spin and at the right time. Catching is actually the easy part because the pin tends to hit squarely in your hand assuming the toss was correct. So you need to be aware of the state of all three pins, but you need to pay specific attention to the pin you're tossing at that specific moment.

In my mind that’s the challenge that most of us find ourselves in daily as we try to balance work, family, fitness, and our own mental and spiritual well being. Just take the most common example on a Zoom call when someone gets interrupted by their young children. Yes, it’s cute in the moment for the participants on the call, but the emotional burden being carried by the parent can be extreme. This is probably the most frequent request for assistance that hits my radar “I need help with the kids! My spouse and I are both working while the kids are at home for remote learning. Help...this isn’t working!” In that moment, each parent is making a real-time decision of priority of work versus family and a choice of where to focus for that specific moment. This is manageable for a while, but extremely taxing over time and takes a heavy toll on this family unit.

At Cloudreach, I believe we responded to the initial impact of COVID relatively well. We quickly adopted a remote work mandate, continuously delivered services to our customers, created online communities for our teams to connect (such as the Virtual PUB named the COVID Arms) and even embraced a virtual “bring your kids to work day” which was a huge success amongst many other initiatives. Now, as we transition to this next extended phase of coping with COVID through the winter, we’re investing in a much more comprehensive long term focus on mental, physical, and social well being for all our employees. This is a comprehensive effort to put in place coping measures for our teams so we can all manage through the period when we each “hit the wall.” 

I plan to continue this coping with COVID series as a means for me personally to try to find a balance and hopefully stumble across a few great ideas through the journey. Please share with me any ideas you have implemented to help your teams manage through the pandemic and prepare for the winter ahead. And I’m now off to try to break that world record!