I am not a product of my circumstances. I am a product of my decisions.
Stephen Covey – Educator & Writer
Life and work are all about making smart choices – specifically risk based, problem solving (RBPS) and deciding (RBDM). And quite frankly, it sucks for most VUCANs. It’s not easy in COVID time. Why? Because many of our decisions are reactive, impulsive, fear-driven, or stimulus driven below our threshold of awareness. Or, in other words, most of the time we aren’t aware of what we’re doing and deciding. Let’s call this the fog of life and work.
We’re big believers in choice. We’ve had discussions with VUCANs without marketable skills, which are based on poor personal problem solving and decision making. Let’s look at a few examples: If you went to the beach after being quarantined 8 weeks, it was your decision. If you didn’t wash your hands and took COVID distancing risk seriously, it was your decision. If you got a degree in a non-marketable area, it was your decision. If you haven’t upgraded your skills, it was your decision.
What’s the solution? Where does one start? We think that it starts with COVID self awareness, self acknowledgement, and self management.
Work Lesson Earned: During COVID world may not offer a vaccine in 2020 or 2021. Tensions are going to escalate over every small and big thing. Things that were natural are now unnatural like going to the store. Wipe? Social distance? Mask? So, it’s going to be all about your risk taking and decision making. So be smart and do what the risk pros do. The below quote is from a Business Week article: ‘What Happens When an Economist Walks into a Brothel’ provides a few clues:
“To learn how to manage risks in your life, don’t consult office-bound economists or actuaries. Ask the real experts: prostitutes, gamblers, magicians, paparazzi, big-wave surfers, movie producers, horse breeders, and soldiers. Their careers require them to take risks. They succeed by doing so smartly—deriving as much benefit as possible per unit of risk taken.”[i]
[i] ‘What Happens When An Economist Walks Into a Brothel’, Business Week, April 3, 2019.