Coronavirus Identity Crisis

Call it furlough, call it being laid off, call it being let go, call it what you want, they all feel the same and boil down to being unemployed. While being let go in this pandemic is not personal, when it happens to your person, it sure feels personal. At the same time, it is completely understandable - business is business. I will admit that there is definitely a weird sense of solidarity being one of the 26 and a half million people who now find themselves jobless.

I was one of the early Covid Casualties, thankfully only from the business sense and not from an epidemiological standpoint. I was furloughed on March 20th, even before my state had declared a Stay at Home mandate. In retrospect, there was some writing on the wall, but being the eternal optimist that I am, I must have read right through it. Looking back, I have to admit I feel a little foolish for not seeing it for what it was, although I am not beating myself up too much; the outcome would still be the same.  

This is where my story begins. It is no secret that I have had a flurry of jobs over the past five years after spending 11 years with Aon Hewitt through acquisition: Exult to Hewitt Associates and then to Aon to become Aon Hewitt - with a little boomerang back to Hewitt after a stint at HireRight with the iconic Josh Schwede. It was the running joke that I showed up at the HR Tech conference with a new business card every year. I guess you could say I was looking for my calling. I went from Montage (now Modern Hire) to PeopleDoc to Miller Heiman Group (now part of Korn Ferry) to Reflektive before landing at Leapgen.

Leapgen was it...the place where I finally found my groove. I proudly declared to anyone who asked and even some who didn’t (Jason Averbook) that Leapgen was my five-year plan, unless of course something big happened, like an acquisition, or say... a pandemic. I am writing this now looking at the time, aware that in less than an hour my furlough will become an official separation. It is a little heartbreaking because Leapgen felt different. I really did the work, not just the job, but the W O R K. We all know that every place has its ups and downs and we all have likely asked ourselves, do I work through this or do I take that call from a recruiter or friend who has an “awesome opportunity you would be perfect for.”

There is always a choice to take the call or not, at the same time, it takes five years to have five years experience and there is work to be done to get through the four stages of team building: Forming, Storming, Norming before you really get to Performing. Obviously, given my track record, I tended to take the call. Not at Leapgen, I did the work, we got to Performing...well until I had to take the call, the call to let me know that Covid had struck. 

Here’s the thing - I know that I tend to fall in love easily and every new job was the same story. I went all in, evangelized, tried to recruit friends, and proudly wore the company colors (I am writing this now with a Leapgen orange fine-tip Sharpie). Falling hard for my company went hand-in-hand with my company making up a large portion of my personal identity. For so many years, right wrong or indifferent, my identity was determined by my place of employment. I imagine I am not the only person among the 23% of Americans whose sense of identity has faded with this pandemic - we are now all swimming in this pool of joblessness, we are Covid Casualties, Pandemic Refugees looking for our next opportunity. 

I feel very grateful. Those who know me even a little bit know my passion for listening science (if you don’t know about it, hit me up - I will happily send you a Listening Assessment and walk you through your Listening Profile). My interest in listening was born when I met Dana Dupuis who is the founder of Echo Listening Intelligence and now the director of listening science for Mandel. Echo stands for Effective Communication for Healthy Organizations. Dana’s passion was contagious, and I caught the listening bug when I joined Echo’s advisory board last spring. 

Through connections I made as an advisory board member, I had a call with a fellow advisory board member, Graham Bodie, the Monday after I was furloughed. Graham and I discussed a campaign he was working on with Pearce Godwin at Listen First/National Conversation Project that had a need for additional resources. From that conversation, I joined a coalition, #WeavingCommunity, formed through a joint project between the National Conversation Project and the Aspen Institute led by David Brooks (yes! that David Brooks!) focused on helping communities come together and stay socially connected while physically distant in this time of crisis. 

This was all very serendipitous because this time last year when I was at Reflektive, I happened to read (and fall in love with) David Brooks’ book, The Second Mountain. When reading the chapters centered on community building, I had a huge Aha! moment: the foundations of building community in the civic sense are equally applicable to creating culture in the business sense. Those chapters resonated so strongly with me that I actually created a PowerPoint slide and proposed we used David Brooks’ premise around community building as a guide for strengthening the culture at Reflektive. Imagine my surprise when I learned I was embarking on a project in which David Brooks was involved!

I have had several more Aha! moments since being furloughed and joining Listen First Project and the #WeavingCommunity campaign: 

First, while many organizations want to create a “family-like” culture, they are not family. You can love them like family and build a sense of family style community within the organization, but when it comes down to it, business is business.

Next, if you are like me and you fall in love easily - that is OKAY! Do not change your outlook because of this pandemic. It is actually better than okay, because when you love your job/product/solution/service it makes going to work so much better and you become an ambassador for your organization which creates authentic excitement. The old saying, “It’s better to have loved and lost than to have never loved at all” still holds true. I am willing to take the heartbreak and to still go all in.

Last, let meaning define your identity, not your job. If you have read David Brooks’ book, The Second Mountain, you know that we don’t truly find our purpose in life until we start climbing that second mountain. If you have not read it, I highly recommend it - it is truly inspirational, especially now. I wholeheartedly expect to fall head over heels in love with my next opportunity, however, at the same time, I commit to being actively involved in giving to my community and to continue climbing my second mountain.

Maybe this is actually where my story begins! Joining Listen First and the National Conversation Projects and chairing one of the #WeavingCommunity committees has inspired and changed me. While listening has been a passion of mine for the last year and a half, listening first to understand and encouraging conversations with people who have different viewpoints has added meaning to that passion; meaning that I intend to foster going forward - even after I land my next gig!

*Because it would be unlike me to not give a shout out to #WeavingCommunity, here is what we are up to:

#WeavingCommunity is centered around creating connections that drive a sense of community through promoting and encouraging acts of kindness and building deeper relationships with deliberate conversations intended to weave community through these daily acts of care and communication.We know that our relationships make us strong and believe every person matters. We are confident that getting conversations started will lead to the understanding that what we share is far more important than how we differ. Community (physical and virtual) is a gift we give to ourselves.

Join us at weaving2020.org and give yourself the gift of forming authentic relationships that build community. Please reach out to me if you are interested in learning more, or even better joining our campaign!

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