At a Loss for Words ....

Is this the future we have to look forward to? I actually can't believe what I'm seeing. I know the time has come to make necessary changes, but didn't imagine that the situation is this bad. Read and decide for yourselves.

The following is a rough translation of this post in Hebrew by an organizational consultant:

"In recent weeks I have been accompanying an organization through several challenges. At least one day a week I am there, physically, on site. I literally felt in my body what the managers were going through.

It's a bit like a having a bad odor in the house, and if you stay in it long enough ... you get used to it?! And just forget - that it stinks here.

The descriptions go a bit like this:

1. Everything is a CRISIS - Urgent, Crisis, things need to be done instantly, an emergency response is required ... right this moment.

2. Everything that was set / planned / laid on the table before the crisis (and there is always a crisis - not in reality, in the experience) was run over, postponed and often also forgotten because the day to day washes over everything like a powerful tsunami.

3. Everyone in survival mode - from the raging cortisol, from the fact that there is nothing to hold on to, from the load, from the many changes and the uncertainty - from having run out of internal resources for creative thinking, for stopping, for considering any change at all. We're in emergency mode all the time.

4. There are those who pay a higher price - usually it will be the workers, even the female workers. And there is simply no one to notice and say they see, that it's important to them, that they care, even if they can't do anything about it.

5. Percentages in results - apparently, measurably, in meeting long-set goals (and for most managers it is clear that they will not be met) and despite this, everyone continues on the same path, at an accelerated pace

5. The VP that I'm working with tries to hold everything together. The present, our work together, and what emerges from the future. Her time in captivity. We sit together and there is not a moment of silence. The phone rings non-stop, people open the door and ask her things, she gets a call from the CEO's office that there is an urgent meeting in half an hour and it's like this ... all the time.

The second time I got out of there, I had to breathe consciously, a lot of air as I passed through the revolving doors at the entrance, asking not to take the storm with me.

The third time, we sat outside on the grass (if anyone opens the office door, they will have to wait), the phone was left in good hands and we had 45 minutes of clarity in the eye of the storm. It required a conscious, proactive decision as opposed to a status quo. It was possible for a moment to listen to everything, to put things aside, to reorganize, to breathe.

Sometimes to accelerate, it is necessary to slow down.

Sometimes to crack the details, it is necessary to go up to the balcony and look at the whole.

Sometimes in order to find the acupuncture point (the key points for intervention) one has to stop the drift and switch to deep listening.

Sometimes to start living you have to agree that survival is not enough.

(The photo is from dessert after lunch)"