My top 12 lessons learned through 12 months of Covid-19 lockdowns ??

So, this week marks a year since we had to close the adventure centre, due to Coronavirus or as most of us took to calling it, COVID 19. I remember the few days leading up to it, we were planning for and excited by the prospects of an exceptionally busy season ahead, with a full order book of confirmed bookings and a waiting list of contacts looking for dates to be fitted in. Over the winter I had made some significant changes to our operations and had spent quite a bit of money developing a new restaurant, dining area, and new outdoor activities in SkyPark, as well as new equipment investment at the adventure centre. We had built a new staff accommodation block and recruited staff due to arrive within days, from all over the world to work with us. I had worked diligently developing and bring together a new management team, that I was excited to work with. Yes, 2020 was going to be an amazing year. Then bang! ?? We had to close.

I remember that week being manic, running around everywhere turning off electricity, draining down water tanks, closing buildings, tying down equipment, moving vehicles. We had just received a large food order and were running around trying to find freezers to fill, praying the electricity would not go off when there was no one in.

We called dozens of people we had promised employment to, apologising, and wishing them good health and to stay safe, but that we had no idea if we would be able to bring them over to Ireland for work this year. Some staff that had arrived early I had to send back home, it was all very emotional and stressful. ??

I had no idea what we were going to do with our loyal full-time permanent staff and no clue as to how long the lockdown was going to go on for, so we made the painful decision to put everyone on the Irish Governments PUP scheme. Unfortunately, I did not qualify for the scheme as I lived in Northern Ireland so what the heck was, I going to do with myself? ??

I made the decision that I would stay and carry-on working, on what I had no clue. I remember after everyone was gone, walking into a normally vibrant activity centre at 0700 on Monday morning 23rd March. Sitting down opening my computer logging into the system, to see that, that particular day, I should have been welcoming a school group of 150 due to stay for 3 days. About 8 am the MD walked into the building and asked me what I was doing here, didn’t I know we were closed, to which I commented that the centre might be closed but the world hadn’t come to an end and I was going to keep fighting no matter what. If nurses, doctors, bankers and bakers, bus drivers, and firemen were all still working then so was I. He just laughed and said, “well then so am I”. At 9 am my newly appointed sales manager had just cycled his bike, 15 km to work and landed in too, so he could update the PMS and override the night audit, so within a couple of hours I had a Team and we called it ‘The Three Amigos’. We went and made coffee, sat in the sun, and started to brainstorm what we could do with a 300-bed hostel, a plethora of holiday homes and 3 massive adventure parks.???♂?

The rest of that week we reached out to all our contacts within our network, tossing ideas about like confetti at a wedding. Everything seemed to be in vain, like everyone else in the country, no one had a clue what to do or how long the pandemic was going to be with us. But I plugged away with crazy ideas and calling people trying to be helpful and after 6 weeks, two of those being Easter we won a Government contract to support children in residential care homes, who were struggling due to staff illness and being locked up 24 hours a day.????????????

So, what lessons did I learn over lockdown? Well, here’s a few brief headers that I hopefully plan to tease out, of what worked and didn’t work for me.

I think some of these lessons are essential for life, regardless of a global pandemic or not:

1.      Stay Positive ?? …. focus on the good things in life and avoid the bad, easier said than done in a worldwide pandemic, the news cycle was endless with death and more death all around. After about a week of listening to the same news stories day in and day out. I made a conscious decision not to listen to the news and just focus on the positive things around me, being a news junkie, this was at first extremely difficult and I thought I was missing out on vital information, so I went from having my phone ping me with every “breaking news” to only watching C4 news plus 1 at 20:00.

2.      Hold dear to routine ??…it would have been easy to just become a slob over lockdown, but I made a conscious effort to get up at the same time every morning at 0600 and do the same daily routine I did before lockdown. Just keep going no matter what, plodding along, day in and day out minute by minute, hour by hour just keep going. Someone once told me how you steer an oil tanker, get it moving first. You must sometimes dig deep and just plod step by step.

3.      Learn Study, Study Learn ??…I applied this more vigorously during lockdown than at any other time since I was at college, consuming books, podcasts, LinkedIn learning, Udemy, YouTube. Because I had made a conscious effort to avoid news and social media negativity, I had bags of time for other stuff, so I filled it with learning new skills.

4.      Build a team ???????????…that first morning even for that short hour on my own, it felt daunting. What was I going to do for the next 10 hours in work all by myself but as soon as the MD and sales manager arrived in and we made a conscious decision to fight, I knew I had a Team, everything else that faced us seemed easier?

5.      Communicate with your Team ?? …this is essential, and the 3 of us spent the first 30 minutes discussing and brainstorming, what each one of us was going to do, and off we went, catching up regularly throughout the day. It did not stop there though; I made the decision that every Friday afternoon I would call every single member of the company just to check in with them to see how they were doing and keep them abreast of what the 3 Amigos were doing to try and get the business open again.

6.      No Idea is a bad idea ?…our morning meetings took on a new vigor, where we literally tossed ideas up in the air and no matter how crazy they were, we ran them down until it was a resounding no way that will not work. Chase every potential sales lead to death …we kept at every single lead no matter how small, we were moving bookings as best we could, to salvage every single sale that was in the system. Failure was not an option, I simply refused to accept failure, every door that I knocked on if it didn’t open, I just told myself, that particular person wasn’t ready to invite me in just yet, but one day they would, and do you know what, that has come to pass as the months have gone.

7.      Know your numbers ??…cashflow is king, after week one, this became my obsession, I literally looked at every penny and where was it going, we spoke to every supplier and set up plans to work with them, as we knew they were in the same boat we were.

8.      Unwind with purpose ???♂?…instead of just going home and lying about I became fanatical about doing things that helped me relax but that, would add value to my free time, again I think it had to do with avoiding the news cycles. Mental health is vital, and you need to think about it the same way you do physical health. In the same way, you can’t expect to punish your body by not looking after it, with a poor diet and lack of exercise, you have to look after your mental health the same way. Watch what you read, what you listen to, how you feed the brain, it is as vital even positive sleep took on a whole new meaning, sleep is even more vital when you’re stressed. It’s the brains' way of switching off.

9.      Success is going from one failure to another without loss of enthusiasm?? …Churchill said this, and he should know, but my interpretation of this is “going from one bad decision to another without loss of enthusiasm” during the second world war he had more failures and made countless bad decisions, simply by the fact he was the guy in charge and someone had to make decisions, his decisions, however, didn’t just affect him but literally millions of people, but no matter what he just kept going, without losing his appetite for life and his desire to help those around him. It’s easy to criticize those in leadership positions and hindsight is a wonderful thing but the truth is there is no rule book for leadership and making decisions in a global pandemic, no one had a clue what to do but they had to remain positive for the sake of those around them. This is true leadership.

10.  Network, Network, Network ?…did I say network? Use your contacts cultivate them with care, I spent ages calling business friends just checking in with them, asking how they were doing, trying to be a listening ear but at the same time letting them know I was open for business, sewing seeds. I made countless new contacts in the industry, via LinkedIn and spent time just saying hello and I’m here if you need someone to talk to.

11.  Be Kind ??…as I have said, not everyone that I reached out to was ready to open the door to me, some weren’t in a good position themselves and some were having a hard time, people that I expected to be helpful refused to even talk to me, leaders that I’d always looked up to and considered exceptional seemed to be completely lost. I never took offence; I made a conscious effort not to be offended and forced myself to be as kind and generous as they would let me be.

12.  Have a purpose ??… @SimonSinek talks about “What is your why?” I found this really useful over lockdown, it made me really focused, for me it wasn’t some big picture thinking or some snazzy new concept. At the start of the pandemic, I knew I was not a doctor, or nurse, or fireman, or in the emergency services, but I wanted to help. I wanted to say to myself, no one else, that rather than sit in the house, I could make a difference no matter how small, during this awful COVID 19 global pandemic. As this great global event in history begins to end, I will remember all the young people I spent time with, helping, teaching, just being a friend, and helping steer their lives in a more positive direction, that for me, gave me more satisfaction and reward, even when it felt like many in our local community and some of my own staff and colleagues were against me.

These were my top 12 lessons learned during what has become a 12-month global pandemic obviously it isn’t completely over yet, but we are beginning to see a road map of recovery, I hope you found them interesting and helpful, if there was enough interest I would love to flesh them out some more.

But what sustained you during lockdown? I’d love to hear your comments?

Got value, give it a ??

#Leadership #Management #Success #Bestadvice #Teambuilding