Navigating change during times of chaos can challenge even the most seasoned leaders.
Fortunately, Vicki Shillington at ThinqShift.com has synthesized change curve theory into a simple three phases model that uses an empathic approach to managing people while keeping the business productive and profitable.
The three-phase model outlines the characteristics of the chaos, acceptance and new normal stages with thoughts on how to reduce fear and increase physiological safety to remain proactive and open to opportunity.
One thing that remains constant in life is change. And, there’s no right answer. But, having the tools and skills as a leader to know when to push the boundaries and when to ease off and meet people where they’re at can be the difference between surviving and thriving.
Clear your desk and silence your notifications for this in-depth look at the three phases of successful change management during chaotic times podcast.
Reframing mental models of what compassion and empathy look like
In this episode, we’re going to look at ways leaders can effectively help their teams and employees feel safe by reframing their mental models of what compassion and empathy look like at work.
00:22 – Introduction
00:27 – Understanding change and how to respond in a way that makes people feel safe during uncertainty
01:37 – Remember that we’re human beings, not human doings
03:28 – Chaos phase
05:36 – Showing high empathy at work
07:55 – Acceptance phase
10:24 – Accepting the possibility of possibilities
13:36 – Staying one step ahead with purpose
14:31 – Binary approach to business success, from the individual to the collective
17:11 – Taking care of yourself as a leader
19:37 – The new normal phase
21:14 – Capitalizing on opportunities
25:57 – Focus on what is in your control
26:45 – Meeting people where they’re at without trying to fix them
28:35 – New normal at the world level
Vicki Shillington bio
Vicki Shillington, Chief Happiness Officer at ThinqShift. Vicki’s expertise is in digital transformation, organization effectiveness and culture shifting. Her sweet spot is in tackling the underlying culture shifts required for true organizational transformation. She loves to bring the core principles of positive psychology to help shift mindsets and help others learn how to flourish no matter their circumstances. She orchestrates results and happiness!
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Links to additional resources
Vicki Shillington’s ThinqShift website: http://thinqshift.com
Follow Leader Lounge Community on Spotify: http://leaderlounge.community
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April Qureshi’s leadership website: https://aprilqureshi.com
April Qureshi on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/april-qureshi/
April’s leadership books on Amazon: http://booksbyapril.ca
Book April to speak at your event: http://aprilspeaks.ca
April Qureshi’s Linktree: https://linktr.ee/aprilqureshi
Episode transcription
April Qureshi (00:02):
Hello, and welcome to the leader lounge community where great leaders bridge the gap between people and performance. I’m your host, April Qureshi.
April Qureshi (00:13):
And today we have with us Vicki Shillington from ThinqShift. Welcome Vicki.
Vicki Shillington (00:19):
Thank you. Great to be here today.
April Qureshi (00:22):
And so we’re talking about … I came across your work in a Facebook group with Rich Litvin and you shared with us a three-phase model for change, and it really opened my perspective on how people shift through change. And I’m wondering if you could, you know, share that with us here today.
Vicki Shillington (00:46):
Oh, I’d love to. Yeah. Well, what we are finding is that there isn’t a mental model for how we think about change right now. It’s so uncertain. People don’t know when they meet going to go back into their, their regular world or if their regular world is actually gonna be there on the other side. And when the human brain doesn’t have a model to entity, we feel very unsafe. So this model is based on change curve theory, and it allows us to have a frame of reference with which we can think about where are we, where others in our world, so we can figure out how to respond to them in a way that makes sense to them and to us. And so that we come across as compassionate and caring and able to move them forward in their journey from wherever they are right now.
April Qureshi (01:31):
And so, in your experience, why what’s the importance of compassion in business and leadership?
Vicki Shillington (01:37):
Well, what’s really important, especially right now, but in, in any situation is, is, you know, we are, we are human beings. We’re not human doings.
Vicki Shillington (01:48):
<Laugh> we forget that sometimes. Yeah. And so the management theories and the eighties didn’t tend to focus so much on the human. It was more based on industrial era and the, the leadership structures that grew up from there. So bringing your whole self to work has been something that’s a lot more acceptable in the current area that we live in, but in the past, it really hasn’t been. And so showing compassion is not always seen as a sign of strength in, in the world of work because of the way we’ve grown up in the industrial area, where everything was boiled down to how quickly and efficiently could we get widgets out the door. So what’s so important in this period we’re in right now, is that everything has been turned on its head. It’s so challenging in terms of thinking about ourselves, our safety, the safety of our loved ones. And so we need that degree of compassion right now because it’s not okay to move to people into a rational place when they’re feeling unsafe, they just don’t get it.
April Qureshi (02:51):
Mm-Hmm <affirmative>. Yeah. And so having the compassion, having that safe place, where people can connect whether it’s community with you know, your work environment or community at home, or just community in general, having that, that safe place to feel that you’re being heard and listen to. And from there, we can begin to shift, you know, looking forward into the future, into what the new normal may be only then can we begin to explore what those ideas might take shape as?
Vicki Shillington (03:28):
Yeah. Yeah. So this model of the three phases is adapted from change curve theory, and as the chaos phase, the acceptance and the, your normal. So when we’re in chaos, you know, our world has really been turned upside down. It doesn’t feel like we can ever imagine things going back to the way they were. And it’s very hard to see beyond anything other than am I okay? Is my family okay. So we’re concerned about ourselves. We’re concerned about financially. Are we okay physically? Are we okay? And emotionally, how are we doing? Are we feeling a huge amount of anxiety? Are we feeling uncertainty what’s really going on with us right now? And for people who are still in this stage, what we need to realize is that this stage is categorized by a high degree of energy. As adrenaline kicks in and we get into fight or flight and just think about survival, but it’s a short-term focus of energy.
Vicki Shillington (04:25):
It’s nothing long term. It’s not sustainable. It’s adrenaline led. It’s like a caffeine. And so what happens is we try and do whatever we can to feel safe. So it could be head work. I need to be on all the time. My zoom calls, I’m responding to emails. If I’m on collaboration tools like slack, I am responding at all hours of the day or night, but you have to ask yourself, sending a message at 11 o’clock at night, who’s that serving? What value is it adding into the world? What does it just make you feel better? And are you creating more havoc for the other person once they get it? Because between 11:00 PM and eight, I’m not a huge amount is gonna happen. And this, there is a true emergency. So the reason we do that is because we feel so unsafe. So anything we can do to make sure we feel connected, feels really, really good to us. And then we also feel guilty, cuz it still feels like what’s not really enough. What else could I be doing? And so we compare ourselves to others and it feels very very tense cuz we busy. They say right now Forbes research has shown that we are working over 35% more hours
April Qureshi (05:32):
In the crisis. Is that specifically in the crisis?
Vicki Shillington (05:36):
Yeah, but we are 30% less productive. So it’s wow. It’s, it’s showing us that we are busy, busy, busy, but we are not necessarily adding any more value because we are needing to be so reactive or feeling like we are. And so the thing to do here is to show high empathy. And so what that looks like is when you’re speaking to someone, just check in with them, like, how are you doing? How’s your family doing? Have you been affected by COVID? Has your family been affected by the economy and taking time to dig in and they may not be willing to share. And if they aren’t, the best thing to do is actually share your own story. Well, here’s, what’s going on with me. Here’s some, you know, I’m really struggling with homeschooling. I’m really struggling to not, to not be always on. I’m having a tough time with that.
Vicki Shillington (06:22):
And the more you share more likely the other person is to go, oh, this actually is an okay conversation. They’re not just asking the question to ask the question, cuz HR asked them to ask the question. They’re actually struggling too. I’m feeling a little bit more willing to share what I’m going through. So that’s the way you kind of tease it out of them as we go through that phase. So, you know, you’re in a chaos phase, if you feel unsafe and huge degree of anxiety and you just don’t know what’s gonna happen and it’s causing you to be very, very reactive, nothing more than that. So here’s the thing to do is really check in how much of what you’re doing is truly adding value and recognizing where you come from. And that it’s okay if you are feeling like this, but are you just being busy for the sake of being busy? Was it really serving you? So that’s a chaos. Should I move on to acceptance?
April Qureshi (07:14):
Yeah. Well and, and it’s interesting cuz I like examining what goes on in the brain during these, during these phases. And so when we’re in the chaos, we’re in the fight or flight and I like what you said about, you know, creating community and creating empathy and a dialogue between people even, you know, at work and in our communities so that, you know, we can begin to feel that safety that we need to feel in order to get into what might be the next stage.
Vicki Shillington (07:44):
Yeah, exactly, exactly. It doesn’t work any other way. So, you know, acceptance looks like it’s kind of rise by frustration. It’s a feeling of, gosh, I’ve done this for a very long time. When am I gonna get out there again? And I think most of the world is in that stage right now. I have family in South Africa and they’re, they’re in, they’re in proper lockdown where they’re only allowed out to go to the supermarket and exercise between six and 9:00 AM. And so that frustration, I’m not actually getting outta your house to see anybody. It’s a long time, at least here in Los Angeles, we can go for walks. There’s a certain degree of interaction we can have, but even that’s getting old, you know, we just love to go for a meal or a beer with somebody. So we actually do have a choice there during the stage because we no longer in fight or fight in that same panicky way, we’re more rational.
Vicki Shillington (08:35):
So we’ve kicked into a different part of our brain. So we have a cognitive choice of, are we going to endure or do we want to thrive? Now thriving may seem a little challenging, but it is possible, but they’re very specific things you have to do to rewire your brain. If you’re gonna choose to thrive rather than just endure. What we also need to know during this phase is that if you experience an energy crash, that’s normal. We’re no longer on that adrenaline here. So adrenaline is only there for that period of time and then it, it disappears. So that’s gone the counter to that. We start to feel more guilty and lonely and we see a lot more depression kick in a lot more depression as people just start to feel, you know, we’ve been asked as human beings to be incarcerated. Astronauts are incarcerated those in prison.
Vicki Shillington (09:24):
It’s not a natural state for most humans. So unless we are comfortable with who we are, you know, happiness is who you own and how you feel about yourself when you’re alone with yourself. And not many people are there. Not many people have done the deep work to figure out who are there and are they okay on their own? So this is the time to do that. And it’s not easy. And humans are designed for discomfort. Humans are designed for hardship. Humans are designed for of this, but we don’t know that. So we tend to numb, you know, we numb with sugar. That’s my favorite. You know, I’m getting over that, but sugar’s always something I would go to. We numb with busyness, distraction, social media, alcohol drugs, food, carbohydrates, whatever it is, we have our way of numbing. That means we don’t have to feel the feelings of who are we when we’re alone with ourselves, as opposed to doing the deep inner work about what is our sole purpose and why are we here?
Vicki Shillington (10:24):
So this phase is actually more about that accepting what we’re going through and accepting, Hey, we’ve been forced to go inwards. We’ve been forced to go indoors and be that family. What if in five years we look back on this period and was the best thing that ever happened to us. What would that look like? And that might seem hard right now, but there is a choice we can either power through and just end endure and somehow get through it. Or we can see, you know, in five years, when I think about this period, I went to see it as an opportunity to have deeper connections with my family. Kids. These days are reporting that they spend so much time on social media. That by the time they get to dinner, they’re as sick of their phones. I mean, what an opportunity for parents, if they, if they truly choose to have fun and be lighthearted and be a little bit more engaging in a way that’s just different.
April Qureshi (11:15):
Yeah. I like what you said there, because with this huge change, this huge shift in, you know, it’s basically been forced upon us. You know, one of the questions that keeps emerging for me, I love to look at things from values-based focus. And so, you know, you touched on it there, like what’s, what are you noticing that’s emerging as far as, you know, personal values in the workplace values in leadership that is different from before, you know, maybe eight weeks ago. And, where do you see that? What do you see emerging? As far as values in, in, in our communities?
Vicki Shillington (12:04):
So I think we seeing the polar opposites. So on the one hand we seeing a lot of the goodness. So we seeing a lot of the behaviors. We wished we’d seen an organization. So most of my CEOs and my clients are taking care of their people. They’re doing whatever they can to make sure that they don’t lay off their people take as good care as they can of their emotional wellbeing. We’re doing a lot of wellbeing, check-ins for their teams, making sure that they have the emotional tools that are needed and that’s heartwarming. But we also know when they come out the other side, if people aren’t cutting it, if they’re not doing their jobs, as well as they need to be that loyalty’s gonna disappear because there’s a much richer talent base out there. So many people have lost their jobs and it’s a give and take.
Vicki Shillington (12:53):
It’s like, Hey, we’ve looked after you. If you’re not truly adding value, if you’re gonna go back to dysfunctional behaviors that were there before. Well, good luck with that. It’s not gonna turn off be so good. So I think it’s an opportunity right now for everybody to just reassess. And I always like to ask myself in five years, you know, what’s really gonna be the thing I remember from this period. How do I wanna show up? Am I truly adding value or am I just turning up to some zoom meetings, being some emails and saying that’s eight hours a day? Well, that’s not really gonna get you very fun. What we seeing now through the pandemic is I can’t really see when you’re working or not working. So it’s gotta be about outcomes and results and the world’s been moving that direction anyway, but this has forced that agenda.
Vicki Shillington (13:36):
So you can stop and take a look and think, if I look back on last week, what did I really do that added value to myself? How did I take care of myself for my family and for my work so that I’m doing something of value and meaning in the world that I can control not coming out of it. The other side those leaders will definitely be a step ahead in terms of how they’re thinking about the, the purpose they have on the world and how they’re thinking about the environmental impacts and how they’re showing up as leaders. On the other hand, we see leading the pod opposite of leader behaviors. That is aren’t as good. So they are focusing more on short term profit. They should focusing more on themselves and what they can gain from it. And that’s a lot more visual than it was before, before it was harder to know what was really going on inside and outside of organizations.
Vicki Shillington (14:31):
But right now everything’s out there for everybody to see everyone’s paying a lot more attention because things are so quiet internally. So we are seeing the leaders that are making these poor decisions and how they are reflecting on them. As organizations, we’re seeing the leaders that are looking inward and taking care of their organization, but they’re not necessarily giving the resources back into the world and that’s gonna catch them out. You know, their reputational damage. I know a number of organizations that are doing that right now. And the, the reputational damage they’re doing to themselves is untold. And they have no idea how that’s gonna manifest itself. I have one client who is a chef and his owner has not been helping him really pivot to how the organization needs to work in this new world. He’s like, you know, coming out of this Vicki, I’m gonna, find myself a different way of engaging because I needed help right now.
Vicki Shillington (15:25):
And I just weren’t there. So we’re gonna see a lot more of that. People are gonna be a lot more binary in terms of how do we all get through this together? Well, versus how do I take care of myself and get through this on my own? And so it’s forcing individualistic societies like America, a lot of like, like a lot of the U the Western societies to be a lot more collectivist to think about the collective whole. And it’s, it’s a challenging sort of paradigms and dimensions, not everyone’s willing to get on board, but we know that that’s going to fundamentally shift how businesses succeed going forward. And it’s not only gonna be based on profit. You gotta have a clear sense of your purpose as well. The three P’s, a profit, purpose and product, you know, the purpose is gonna be a big one out there. It’s great to be able to charge a huge amount of money for a pair of leggings. But if you’re not giving back into the environment, people aren’t that interested anymore. If you’re giving back to the environment and serving your community locally, then people pay a little extra for those really expensive leggings. So it’s gonna be a much bigger equation in terms of how we see the world going forward.
April Qureshi (16:31):
Yeah. So everything that we’re doing, no matter where you on this are on the spectrum, everything is just amplified. And you know, it’s like a, like a glass bowl where, where, you know, people are just looking in, cuz there’s really nothing else to do these days in some circumstances. And so people are really focusing in on what the purpose of certain companies are, are putting forward and aligning, you know, with that. And so yeah, in that, how does that play into the next phase in the three-phase model?
Vicki Shillington (17:08):
So
Vicki Shillington (17:11):
The thing to do here before you go into the, the next phase is, is really think about yourself and your integrated work life. So if you find you are an acceptance and you’re feeling very frustrated and you trying to choose whether you endure or thrive, the best thing you can do is create an integrated routine for yourself and your family and your work. Because it’s like having an empty tank. If you have an empty tank, you’re not gonna have the energy needed to innovate in a new normal. So you’ve gotta be able to take care of yourself. And that means all those things we’ve been putting off for years. So we know that exercise reduces an anxiety. We know that eating sugar and carbs may fill you up, but there’s no not many nutrients in those food sources. So you’re actually starving your body.
Vicki Shillington (17:55):
So if you have high anxiety starving your body, you’re not hydrated. You’re not sleeping well. Well, that’s a recipe for disaster. You cannot hope to do anything but endure. So the first thing is to think about what is your ideal day. If we were sitting together in three month’s time, and this has been an amazing period, what would those routines look like? And they’re not easy, but starting small and building that focus of, Hey, you know, I’m gonna drink one more glass of water a day, or I’m gonna go to bed one hour earlier. And then recognizing that the brain is there to keep us IDs, to keep us safe. And so we have to do that time and time again until it just becomes the new thing that we do and choosing the smallest thing where you cannot fail. For example, I’d love to give is if you like to floss your tooth or teeth, just holding a piece of floss by your tooth every night, eventually you will start flossing.
Vicki Shillington (18:48):
It becomes a new neuro pathway that’s been built. So the neuroscience teaches us that our brains are, are infinitely plastic, but we have to just rep repeat. It’s not, it’s not willpower. It’s not motivation. It’s just deciding and committing. And so it’s the smallest thing where you cannot fail. And even if you decide, you know what, tonight I can’t get to bed an hour earlier, but I’m gonna do five minutes. You still, you still repack your brain. So it’s do that thing every single day. And the top 1% of people do it. First thing in the morning, they do that thing that they hate doing obviously sleep. Isn’t the right example here, but say, it’s exercise. You do it every single day, even for five minutes because your brain then feels like it’s a winner and it’s ready to go. And this is gonna be the most important thing you can do for yourself, so that you have the energy for the new normal.
Vicki Shillington (19:37):
And so what that looks like, we know we in the new normal, when we feel like, oh my gosh, I can see the light at the end of the tunnel. I feel like we’re gonna be able to go back out into restaurants and our work world. And it’s really exciting to be able to see our family and friends again. I was supposed to go to South Africa and March to see my, my father and my sister. And when do I get to see them again? You know, it’s, it’s hard to imagine when we’re gonna get on airplanes and cross borders again. And it’s it’s yeah, it’s gonna be exciting when we can do that. It’s so important, but we also have to know it’s gonna be a struggle. Cause even just that thought, I mean, what are airports gonna be like, how is security? How are we gonna line up for our gates?
Vicki Shillington (20:19):
You know? I mean just the whole thought of giving through an airport it’s frankly terrifying right now. Yeah. So we, we have to know that the new normal will be categorized by feeling very busy with a different type of stress. An airport is one example, but for those that have to commute in Los Angeles, we’ll know the commute is horrific here. I mean, you got that going on. A lot of businesses are looking at well, do they want their employees back in their headquarters, given social distancing, but also the financial saving they can make, but there’ll definitely be some sort of blend that most organizations will end up with. So there will be some degree of moving around again. And so that’s gonna feel heavy. My clients are reporting that the drama levels have gone down they’re remote, but now as much as we missed each other, drama comes with that distraction of people wandering over to each other’s desks and the little gossip that kicks in and you know, it’s fun, but Hey, it’s a little scary.
Vicki Shillington (21:14):
So that feels heavy. So, and then you layer on the world is gonna be rebuilding and planning to avoid the next time. And so they’re gonna be regaining market share, you know, trillions and trillions of dollars have left the economy, or where does that go? Where does that come from? It’s gonna have to be reclaimed or taxes are gonna have to go up. Maybe it’s NA. Now the great thing is there will be huge opportunities if you get the timing right at the end of 2008, we had group on an Airbnb and Uber and slack and Venmo, so huge opportunities. But if your tank is empty, you have no chance. There’s just nothing in you. Even if you have that great idea, because all you’re trying to do is survive. It’s like the fight or flight we had in the days when we lived in caves and we saw an animal and we had to run and we running on empty it’s that level of what our life feels like. And that does not feel like thriving. And so the world is gonna require us to innovate and push the boundaries. But if the tank is empty and if we haven’t been able to take people on the journey with us, it’s gonna be tough, tough, tough to feel like we are back in the game. It’s gonna feel like we’re always one step behind trying to catch up and that’s gonna feel heavy and exhausting.
April Qureshi (22:30):
It’s, it’s almost as if with the new normal, we’re gonna go back into this a, a sort of a chaos again. Right. And so being able to, you know, what I imagine will happen is that we’ll be pivoting, you know, between, you know, that new normal and, you know, getting comfortable in that new normal, there may be, we might be back in the chaos phase again, cause I’m like, like you mentioned with the commuting, you know, that’s, that’s several hours a day for a lot of people where we have that time now, but very soon we’re gonna lose that time again. And it’s gonna be spent in our cars in traffic and, you know, so it’s interesting to think about what that new normal will be. And I, I think your, your, your advice there was really simple and so straightforward, you know, to eat well, sleep well and take care of yourself is crucial and creating that innovative state where we can be creative, where we can look into the future and say, Hey, how can we serve our, how can we serve our, our people within our, our communities? How can we serve our clients in these new, innovative ways. And so it, it, the whole, the whole three phase model, when you first shared it with me, I just kept, like for days I was just flipping back and forth with myself and looking out into the world and recognizing that, you know what, this is so applicable at any time in any one day in any one year where we’re just constantly flipping back and forth between these states. And it’s fascinating. I find it fascinating.
Vicki Shillington (24:16):
Yeah. And I think it’s a very easy way to understand change curve theory and even grief theory, because it does apply to any stage of change we are going through, you know, whether it’s a new job or a new family situation, no matter what, we tend to go through those three phases, but we’ve just simplified it into three, cuz the human brain can remember three. But we have to think of COVID even a little bit deeper because as things lighten that, so here in California, beaches have just opened up, but they’re doing it in stages. And we know that every time something opens up, the numbers are gonna go up. So I was speaking to a head of school in Atlanta and he’s not worried about the period right now. He’s worried about the fall when they come back to start the new year because parents are gonna expect teachers to have figured it out.
Vicki Shillington (25:07):
They’re not gonna be okay with what we are going through right now. And what does that mean? Do half the kids come in and the other half burnt week by week, do they bring them all in and then distance them and then have the meals brought in what happens and when one of those kids get ill, right? Then everybody goes back again. And so you go back into to that period of okay, lockdown. So we’re gonna see this over the next year, 18 months, however, however long it takes us to get a vaccine where we are literally gonna go back to chaos and having to go back to lockdown and come back out again and pivot back and forward. And so knowing that that’s what you’re going through is incredibly helpful. And knowing that we move backwards and forwards, depending on our emotional statement, what’s happening to us personally or what’s happening to our family is also incredibly helpful because we know that it’s okay and it’s normal.
Vicki Shillington (25:57):
We not alone. And that if we truly focus on what we can control and that’s ourselves or have the gas asthma tank to move forward. And if we don’t, well, then we’re gonna thrive. And that’s our choice. We have a choice. We are autonomous humans and we know how best to, to match our, our response because people are gonna be in different phases at different times based on their own mental model. And I was talking to a client recently who was struggling with her, her husband. And she said, well, you know, he’s in chaos and I’m an acceptance. I’m trying to move him forward, but he’s just not going there. And I’m like, well, when you’re in that rational state I resemble that too. I remember you, you having used to do this with my husband. I always wanna bring him forward to where I am, but actually you, when you, you are in that chaos, you don’t want someone to bring you forward.
Vicki Shillington (26:45):
You just want them to be with you and empathize with the situation where they are at. And if that’s one message to take away from this, I think that is it. It’s just be with people with where they are and don’t try and fix anything. They are fine where they are and them realizing that you are with them in that state will eventually allow them when they are ready to move on to things, the new normal cause ultimately we wanna get to new normal as quickly as we can. Cause that’s where the opportunity is. That’s where we feel strong in healthy being able to keep going if we’ve been taking care of ourselves, but we can’t do that if we are at a state of chaos and somebody else’s. And so don’t try and fix them, just be there with them. And by being there with them, you’ll find the right moment where they’re ready to be nudged forward and you can nudge them at that stage.
April Qureshi (27:31):
That’s a beautiful message. I know that’s I did it. I used to do it instinctively with my children when they were quite little and they were having trouble, they were frustrated or struggling in whatever way. And I found that when I was able to meet their breath pattern if I was able to meet them where they’re at, just like you’re saying connect with them on their level, and then I could gradually connect their breath to my breath and, and allow, and you know, lengthen that breath out so that they could begin to relax and come out of whatever anxious situation they were in. And so I, I think that’s a beautiful key message for this right now is being able to meet people where they’re at and, and understanding where people are in this in whatever phase of change they’re going through is it’s a phenomenal tool for us to bring together community and better understand each other and have empathy so that we can all move forward together in this.
Vicki Shillington (28:35):
That’s great. Yeah. And you know, the new normal’s gonna require it at the world’s level. They’re gonna have to fund future pandemics and figure around where the world’s going with an increased population growth. The economy is gonna have to recover six, eight, 10 trillion, probably more here in the us. Our world of work is gonna change significantly when we think about social distancing and then our social environment is gonna change. When we think about malls and restaurants and big cities, how comfortable people are gonna be in close proximity to others when we are feeling so unsafe. So it’s gonna be a little bit like 2001 and 2008 that it’s not good or bad. It’s just different. Mm-Hmm <affirmative> the best thing to do is not to anchor back to the past, but to do an emotional reset and say, you know what? It is, what it is, what is good about the current situation and how do I move forward from this accepting? However, however, we need to operate in a way to feel safe and acknowledging that as opposed to living in the past, things are just different. After 2001, security is different at the airports. Social distancing is never, ever gonna go back mm-hmm <affirmative>. So the more we can get ourselves strong internally and build that inner self-efficacy and self-esteem, and, and except where things are and move forward from there, the more successful we’re gonna be in the world without that it’s gonna be a massive struggle.
April Qureshi (30:01):
Yeah. And so we can only change the world when we make those changes inside of us. And again, that’s a wonderful message that you’re sharing with us today, Vicki. And so I’m curious if our listeners today wanted to find out more about your work and, and the things that you do. What, what, where can they go to find out more about you?
Vicki Shillington (30:22):
Our website is probably the best, so that is ThinqShift.com and it syncs with a Q, T H I N Q shift.com. And we’ve just started our first podcast. We’ve got two episodes called be fabulous. We go for a lot of our philosophies with myself and my partner and I think that would be a great day.
April Qureshi (30:44):
Nice. Okay. So check out Vicki’s website, Thinqshift.Com. And so these links will be associated with Vicki’s profile here. So be sure and click through and,get to know Vicki a little bit better and reach out to her and check out her podcast as well. And so Vicki, I wanna thank you today for joining us and sharing your insights on how to craft, you know, a new generation of fabulous leaders.
Vicki Shillington (31:12):
Thank you. I appreciate it. Great having you today.
April Qureshi (31:15):
Thank you.
April Qureshi (31:16):
Thank you for tuning in to the leader lounge community podcast. If you enjoyed this episode today, be sure to hit, follow and share with your friends and community until next time, I’m April Qureshi. Bye for now.
Originally broadcast in May 2020 during the Lead From Within Global Leadership Summit at the onset of the global pandemic. My purpose for republishing is that the value of the conversations with leading experts around the globe is still relevant and will continue to be a touchstone for empowering business and community leaders with innovation and compassion during challenging times.