What Mindsets Are Needed When The Market Is Tight And Uncertain?

What you observe expands.

As a freelance coach working with big and small companies, it was only in early 2023 that I felt the combined adverse effects of the pandemic, the war in Ukraine, and the Energy crisis. Like the GAFA, which let go of ten of thousands of employees, many companies are?tightening their budgets to avoid sinking. The uncertainty of not knowing who will be laid off next or whether the company can cover its costs sends a wave of concerns among employees and leaders alike. From self-actualization (full potential realization), people fall to the near bottom of the Maslow hierarchy of needs: safety (security, resources, health) and physiological needs (to have shelter, food, and clothes).

More often than not, employees are so preoccupied that rigidity, impatience, and worries take over their passion and drive to work. Leaders feel overwhelmed by the wave of absentmindedness and the lack of clarity; they are frustrated not being able to tell what direction to take as the head doesn't know what to do; the market is too volatile and risky. From Business As Usual, every layer of the organization has been propelled to Business As a Concern. Performance could be better, recruiting is stifled, innovation is a dream, and creativity is absent. It is a pressing invitation to transform the mindsets to find a path that works for the company, the people, the community and recover the ability to work, relate and create in harmony.

1st Mindset Transformation: From Reason to Emotion

It is a truism to say, "now is the time to manage emotions." A problematic context like today triggers emotions and points out the necessity to attend to social and emotional needs (connect, console,?and listen). A crisis does that to reason; rationalizing a context that triggers the emotional brain is like asking a fish to climb a tree.?People are afraid for different reasons: employees to lose their livelihoods, leaders to be forced to make difficult decisions that will cost people their comfort, and business owners to lose their babies,?to name a few. Trying to cheer everyone up using reason and saying words like "all will be good," "it is a blessing in disguise,"?and?"it will pass" are accurate but ineffective in reassuring someone who is down?dealing with?physiological or safety needs. The reason sits in the Neo-Cortex, the latest brain. As the saying goes, "last in, first out," the Neo-Cortex is the first to leave the scene when emotions take over. The purpose is to find ways to bring the Neo-Cortex back at the helm. The paradox is that you need first to cure evil with evil, addressing emotions to soothe emotions.

What people need, employees and leaders alike is empathy and compassion. There is no need to avoid the elephant in the room: face it head high, people are afraid and it mobilizes all their attention. Even if you don't share the same difficult context, show empathy as, for the majority, the context feels like jumping from a plane without a parachute and no logic can stop the discomfort.

Empathy creates a bond and bridges one heart to another. When we feel understood and heard, the feelings are less acute, rounder if your want, softer. We don't need to provide a solution, only to be touched by the other's context. Putting words on the concern is like canceling noise: we can hear ourselves instead of the little devil's voice that gets us spiralling down the rabbit hole. We can stop crying out for help and start thinking. Saying, "I hear you, it is concerning and uncomfortable, I can only imagine what you go through," is more effective than, "put yourself together, you are not the only one, stop complaining."

2nd Mindset Transformation: From Either/or to Both/And

In times of constriction and budget cuts, people tend to revert to an "either/or" mindset: "either we have a job/budget, or we don't," "let's focus on the bottom line or we will face more losses," "let's push the people more or we will need to lay them off." The brain is wired that way: we assess and judge situations at any moment to adapt to the context: "should I take this road or that road?" "should I send the email or should I call?", "should I share this information or not." The stress due to the external topical pressures forces people to divide and chose sides.

Whereas, in this strenuous context, the invitation is to explore both/and mindset, which helps focus attention on the bottom line AND emotions, for example. There is no side to pick, just complexity to integrate. With a both/and mindset, it is possible to concentrate on the people AND the operations, valuing their human emotions while working, instead of considering them as robots due to producing results heartlessly. It simultaneously embraces the difficult context and its solution, providing more space for people to live, experience, explore and soothe their thoughts and emotions. When we have to choose sides in the either/or mindset, we shush a part of ourselves. With the both/and mindset we can face the complexity of our perceptions and be in touch with our internal life to let solutions emerge naturally. After all, when the context is right, we are powerful creative, problem solving machine, like all systems.

3rd Mindset Transformation: Connect to Hope and Gratitude

Hope is a critical human emotion. It guides our attention toward a direction, a horizon, a possibility. We can then act, believe, or pray. Without hope, we feel doomed, trapped, like puppets with no agency or free will. Hope drives creativity, love, and performance.

1. Creativity is the dream for something to happen, building ways to carry it out, be it a piece of art, a product, or actions.
2. Love is a desire, the craving for something we hope to find or feel; it is a drive towards the other, a fulfillment, a pleasure, believing that together the world feels better, and more is possible.
3. Performance stems from the hope to deliver a valuable outcome together. When we hope we can trust, collaborate and perform better.

Hope is like the energy of life, helping us dive into the unknown to make things happen. Hope is essential.

When our world crumbles down, what was certain isn't anymore; when we can't provide for our family, pay our bills, keep our home, or buy food, hope feels hopeless. We enter a different realm, the one made out of anxiety, fear, and concerns. We are stuck in reality, we can't dream anymore. It isn't easy in that context to stay optimistic. Still, hope mitigates the impact of fear for a while, before fear can creeps back. At that moment, gratitude is more potent than hope.

Hope is a promise in the future, something uncertain. It connects to what is important, to our full potential. It is expansion, the opposite of constriction. Gratitude is recognizing what we have as a blessing. Gratitude wins in times of uncertainty as it provides certainty about what feels insufficient. We think we don't have enough (to pay the bills, provide or eat), yet, we have plenty. It is a fantastic, cheerful illustration of reframing: by seeing what we have as excellent, we notice how little we need, while feeling satisfied and grounded. It shifts our energy and opens new doors to find solution. Still, it doesn't pay the bills. When we are too low on the Maslow hierarchy of needs, hope can feel harder, so gratitude is there to reconnect to hope.

Support Is All We Need

The Beatles said, "All you need is love," and they were right. Love, in times of uncertainty, can take the form of support. We are ready to be supportive when we love someone who faces a sudden difficulty that puts them in need. It is solidarity. Likewise, we find solidarity when we are courageous to seek support and ask for help. We are not a victim, we are just sharing heart-to-heart what we face and how we feel, allowing others to respond with an open hand. It doesn't mean we get what we want each time, but we can find different types of support. It can be an emotional support that helps feeling heard; a financial one when needed; or a development support, someone reminding us to try something new. When placed in an extraordinary situation we can unravel new skills, dare new behaviours, be different, develop into someone we didn't think we could be. When it is hard, it is an invitation to jump out of your habits and comfort zone to produce different results.

As a leader, offer support to your team members, listen to them openly without trying to solve anything, only with the intent to vent and create a space to pierce the emotional bubble. As a team member, it is time to move past conflicts to see the human behind the behavior, to connect heart-to-heart and listen to other's context. Be ready to ask and give solidarity in any form. Sometimes, just listening is already a magical support, it creates a space where the other can exist in its full complexity.

The three shift of mindset do not need any money, nor a lot of time. They are easy to apply and anyone can master them. Let's connect to each other, heart-to-heart, embrace emotions, complexity and hope together. By providing support we can trigger solidarity and be grateful for the experience we are in as the dawn, a promise for a new reality to emerge.

Sara Bigwood

PCC - ORSCC - Transformation & Development Coach