The coronavirus has, and is going to, impact on a lot of us in a multitude of ways. When we think specifically about the day to day impact on our working lives, we are already seeing an increase in working from home, non-essential travel cancellations, large group events postponed and a variety of health and safety regulations deployed in a host of environments.
For many small businesses and consultants, it could be an especially rough ride. Running a training and coaching business myself, we are having to think more creatively about the next few months. Getting to grips with virtual platforms is essential for us to offer an alternative to classroom workshops. Coaching remotely via Skype or telephone is something coaches have been doing for some time and may really come into its own going forward.
We all know the benefit of face to face communication but there are some real positives around having a conversation and learning experience remotely/virtually. As a coach and trainer, we are able to listen much more effectively when we don’t have eyeballs to engage with. We will notice nuances of tone of voice and pick up on emotions and experiences such as uncertainties, nerves, anger, excitement and access motivation levels. This allows us to have meaningful conversations – ones which perhaps we wouldn’t have had face to face.
It may not be business as ‘completely’ normal but maybe the unexpected gets us using our creativity more. Takes us out of our comfort zones. Makes us even more productive.
And when the havoc calms down we would have learnt a lot and tried a host of new things. That’s at least one thing to be positive about – oh and the fact it has stopped raining for 24 hours.
What new ideas are you trying out?