CGM blog: Focus on your new normal

09 Jun CGM blog: Focus on your new normal

Three days before Britain went into lockdown in March, I parked my car up to collect my son from school for what would be the final time.

Suddenly with no A levels to sit our 17-year-old son Nicholas was leaving school for good.

My mind floated back down the years – all those car journeys, the waiting, the worry about getting there in time having been stuck in unexpected traffic and the day when I cried after dropping him off at nursery for the first time.

The wind, the snow, the sleet, the rain and sun – the car journey conversations, the smiles, the very few tears or upset. Nick loved school and school loved him. He excelled and made the most of education.

For the past three months he has cheerfully studied from home alongside Teresa and I, a university place secured, fulfilling his final school council meeting commitments and maintaining remote contact with his mates while we all safe distanced.

Our temporary ‘new normal’ after mothballing our Media Centre was, rather than race down the webinar route, to ease down a gear so we could make the most of this pause in our lives.

In business-speak, we diversified, switching our focus to authorship – supporting new and would-be authors who are planning, scheming, hoping and dreaming to write their own books and also finishing off my own.

We’ve slowed down, shortened our working day to divert time to work on our house and garden and to take a little more exercise.

Twice a week, we’ve volunteered to deliver food packages for Worcester Foodbank and Worcester Community Trust to people in self isolation.

Most of all, we’ve had time for each other – enjoying coffee and tea breaks, sometimes doing quizzes, eating more healthily. Those school run hours have been clawed back as we’ve spent less time and money on travel and transport.

Twice daily walks, saying hello to fellow walkers, cyclists or joggers we pass and making sure our neighbours are okay have become an essential part not only of our new normal but millions of others too.

When people start telling you what your new normal should be – tell them to shove it.

They haven’t grasped the mood of the time. In fact, they’re adhering pretty much to the old normal.

The last three months have been a momentous, game changer as we’ve experienced a huge paradigm shift which may change humankind forever.

To some, it will simply be a return to business as usual. That’s fine.

For others, profound changes lay ahead – be it attitudes to work, the environment (and our impact on it), a previously suppressed appetite for home working and desire to fulfil a better work/life balance with less reliance on consumption and retail therapy, as we balance budgets and trim spending.

While it is easy to get bogged down with the relatively few people who have refused to self-isolate – mostly, mainly, significantly, bravely, cheerfully, kindly, compassionately, patiently, understandingly, happily, healthily…and s-lo-w-l-y we’ve been great.

Humankind give yourself a pat on the back.

This dreadful virus – which we’ve far from done with yet – has taken its toll but not harmed our collective spirit.

The future of communication and how we choose to do it – our business if you will – can tap into this new normal.

There has been an enormous appetite – driven by necessity of course – to communicate via video platforms such as Zoom, Skype, Microsoft Teams and Google Meet whether for work or with family or to train and learn with webinars etc.

Wouldn’t it be marvellous if – have taken stock so thoroughly – we seized the mood of the moment to renew ourselves and redefine our purpose by ditching the same-old, same-old and becoming our own new you?

That might be diversifying what you do (I know we will be at CGM) – but there should be no diktats.

There has been lots of business talk about how we’re going to ‘bounce back’ and our ‘resilience’. Excuse me?

The new normal will be personal, not business. My only recommendation is that age-old advice to listen.

Listen to people you seek to connect with. Listen in the ways that appeal and work best for them. But – truly, deeply, madly – listen.

We’re also heading into a recession. Badgering people who may be taking a massive financial hit is as unsavoury as people bragging about new business they’ve won.

The likely new normal isn’t just going to be about being kind…but considerate. Considering the views of others and not trying to get them to march to our beat.

More than ever we need to listen, to be kind in our communications and to consider others first not last.

Chris Green is an author, broadcaster, media consultant and managing partner of Chris Green Media.