Why I chose to launch my business in the midst of a global pandemic

The clouds started to part, and the pieces of a woven together dream emerged. What seemed like scraps were forming a beautiful patchwork dream, stitched together with years of experiences, lying in wait.

 I was determined to make 2020 a year full of growth and shifts. It seemed primed for abundance. I had just coordinated and hosted a men’s leadership weekend where I helped others exert their influence at home and at work. My career was fulfilling, and I was helping our business make monumental shifts in leadership mindsets and skillsets to transform towards a new business model. My family was growing and maturing healthily. I was feeling more confident and emboldened than I had in years.  

 Enter coronavirus.  

 "Social distancing" and "flatten the curve" became common language. The world both literally and figuratively came to a crashing halt, except to those families who lost loved ones or livelihoods to this virus. For them — and so many others — the world seemed to be spinning out of control. 2020 was an exceptional year in many regards. 

 But not all was lost or wasted.

 2020 was the year I became much more aware of my emotions. I developed a lexicon to describe more than "happy" or “sad." Perhaps it was a matter of survival. In reality, I think it was a matter of providence.  

 I found myself feeling joy and sadness at the same time. 

 "I'm so joyful at spending these unhurried times with my kids,” AND "I'm so sad about all the loss going on around me." 

 "I'm so lonely not being able to be around friends,” AND "I'm so blessed to be on zoom calls with brave men across the world discussing emotional leadership."  

 The dichotomy of feeling seemingly opposite emotions all at the same time was something I was getting comfortable with — not just during COVID — but in my person. Yet, when talking to others or trying to describe the metamorphosis going on in my soul, most people around me became uneasy when I said I was both "thankful" and "upset" or "angry" and "peaceful" at the same time.  I was learning to hold two opposing opposites and allow them to co-exist – something I realize now is not a skill that the majority of our population has.

 2020 was also the year where unaddressed racial inequality pierced the hearts of many Americans. Graphic images flashed across my devices. Abuse. Mistreatment. Movements and protests became a common occurrence as years of being unheard and unseen fueled collective emotions. Dividing lines were being drawn, and as a white man living in rural America, I felt the need to empathize with my white friends and cry with my black friends. Yet, depending on which person I was talking to, I felt I was being asked to be "for" something and "against" another. 

 2020 was also an unprecedented year where politics and rhetoric further divided friends, families and communities. It seems that we could no longer just "not discuss politics" in an effort to get along. Being glued to devices for constant news updates, opinons became programmed and thoughts became infiltrated. Division seemed to be creeping into even some of the most stable institutions and more sadly in families and communities. Factions became tribes. Tribes became mobs. Mobs became enemies. And those cracks formed fissures which grew into chasms between us. Unconsciously, many chose to identify with either one or the other. Our opinions biased our actions and even selectively altered what we believed. Which news program to watch? What information to search for? What opinion to believe? What truly defines "fake news?" Compounding the issues amongst us was the need to check an "either or" box in November. As Americans, we have the privilege to go to the ballot box and choose one candidate or the other. Further embedding an "or" mentality into an already divided culture.

 Somewhere mid summer during COVID quarantine, I decided to turn off the news. I stopped listening to social media. I became more in touch with what was happening to me — and inside of me — than around me. I became curious about things that made me uncomfortable. Zoom technology allowed me to be in the same room with people VERY different from me, even if everyone in my physical proximity was the same.  

 I read. I journaled. I felt. I talked. I debated. 

 I started feeling less comfortable identifying with a political party but rather elements of BOTH parties.  

 Even my spiritual walk and faith changed as I learned to identify less with the religious rules I had clung to for safety and identified more with the relationship I sought from my faith.  

 I felt like a caterpillar in a cocoon. Not quite who I was, yet not quite who I'd become.

 Then came the moment. The moment when I was given clarity. The moment when I realized all of my life had been an internship leading to this juncture. The moment where I was completely fearful, but simultaneously felt so much freedom.  

 What was “the moment"?  

 The loss of my role.  

 Restructuring they called it. After more than 20 years of pushing myself to become a better leader, helping teams and cultures transform, and improving the workplace for employees, I (and the work I was performing) was deemed unnecessary.  

 While there were other roles in the organization, they would have been the safe play.  "Just put up and shut up,” many well-meaning advisors told me. "This storm will blow over. You can come up for air when it does again and find your place."  

 Yet something was brewing. A storm perhaps? Yet, it didn't seem like a storm but rather a clearing. An opening. A portal. I was able to climb up and not fall down. From the apex I looked down on all of my years of experiences — heartaches and joys, setbacks and sprints, tears and laughter — and truly felt clarity.  

 Step into the fear.  

 Unite the tribes.  

 Build unity.  

 Help others discover their AND.  

 Help others resist the urge to chose the OR. 

 After nearly two decades, I took Marie Kondo's advice and said "goodbye and thank you" to my employer. It was no longer "sparking joy" for me. It was time for me to lean into my calling and step out to give my best gifts to this world.  

 Conjunction Leadership was born.  

 Actually it’s more like it was “named,” because the belief and the behaviors were developed long ago. It just took the right recipe of cultural, social, political and personal turmoil to bring it to light, and the extended periods of personal solitude I had (thank you COVID) enabled me to process, write, embolden and activate.  

 You see, developing the AND/BOTH mindset was written throughout my entire life.  

 I'm a middle child. I had to practice the act of bridging an older AND younger sibling for most of my formative years. I was a farm kid who had mostly city friends. I fed animals and did chores in the evening while they played video games and watched MTV on cable television. I watched my dad have not one, but three separate careers to build a lifestyle — teacher AND farmer AND coach. As an extroverted people lover, I studied science AND found my passion in leading organizations of people rather than pipetting in a lab. I chose to live near Indiana’s largest city AND wanted my kids to raise animals and appreciate agriculture. In my work, I believed in building a place where people could be their best at the office AND at home. 

 I could no longer sit back and watch. I had to act. Stepping out of the either/or was frightening. I could feel a bit of my identity falling away as the label I wore for protection and affiliation no longer fit. My tribe and my friends shifted as some could not understand this new person emerging. Relationships deepened with others as they became inquisitive of how to do this for themselves and for the businesses or organizations they lead. My fear didn't ease, but my courage strengthened as I listened to and learned from people who shared the things with which they were wrestling. I set off to ask a lot of questions to a lot of people to hear their stories of what they were experiencing and what they wished would change.

 The leaders and teams I talked to were desperate for change. The two dimensional "Zoom World" they were living in only exacerbated the feelings of isolation and division they experienced when connecting with three-dimensional people. The default behaviors were becoming more pronounced, and individuals found themselves choosing sides and making quicker decisions. The very definitions of leadership and engagement were upended by a virus, social unrest, political division, and a collective emotional meltdown. As I listened to leaders in the talent management space, they described regret. Despite years of work to steer otherwise, COVID and the many crises following reversed much of their efforts, and the "command and control" style of leadership was quickly emerging.  

 Many leaders prided themselves on the ability to make and communicate quick decisions. However, these decisions were often conveyed with little explanation or empathy for the resulting aftermath.  

 "Who would have that kind of time or emotional capacity in today's environment?" one leader asked as we talked. The casualty? Downstream people, organizations, and families felt uninvolved, underappreciated, unheard, and unseen. When people feel unheard and unseen, they become rebellious. When they become rebellious, division forms. And now the events of 2020 become more understandable. Demostrations, riots and division became the norm in a culture full of people crying out to be seen and heard.

 The events of our present day demand a different style to lead our lives, our culture, and the people for which we are responsible. Command and control leaders make quick decisions that benefit some of the people, placing leaders at the top with others subordinating to the power dynamic.  

 During a coaching session, one brave leader paraphrased a Biblical example, likening himself to King Solomon deciding on the proper way to "split the baby." While describing the situation, he could see the downstream division it was creating. He wanted to change. He just didn't know how. A victim of his own doing. And not giving himself the gift of a pregnant pause to be able to choose a different path.

 It's time for a new style of leader. One who realizes they don't know the answers but can help people in tension come up with the solution. This leader — the AND/BOTH leader — knows how to unite tribes to build nations. They know how to hold tension and turn it into productivity. They can live in their own quirks and use them as gifts without succumbing to talent models or leadership systems that steer them toward being the same as everyone else. They have a grasp on their emotions and allow themselves to feel but never use those emotions and feelings as a weapon, or worse, as a rudder. They are aware of their own confirmation bias and seek diversity of opinion to add color and perspective to the whole story.

 Becoming an AND/BOTH leader is difficult. No one is born with the natural ability.  As we grow in experience and have more information in our minds than ever before, our survival tendency is to frame the world around us as efficiently as possible. Psychologists refer to this concept as “splitting.” We commonly see it as all-or nothing thinking. Perhaps you’ve been the victim of it. 

 Yet all of us have experiences that can allow us to practice and grow. Few people will stop and take the chance to lean into this growth. Sadly many will go on "splitting babies," creating division, and burning themselves out. But few will decide that this is their moment. Their opportunity to reach a higher level. They will step out of the comfort zone and stop being like everyone else. They will step into their power and realize a new level of satisfaction in their life, their leadership, their organizations and in the culture that needs this type of leader more desperately today than ever before.

 2020 was the year I could no longer sit back and watch. I had to more purposefully step out and do something. 2020 was the year where Conjunction Leadership became more than an idea or a dream. It became a reality. I'm thrilled to step into this space, leading an army of AND/BOTH leaders who purpose to make this world just 1% better each day.