The ongoing and extended “new normal” is helping to accelerate the wide-spread acceptance of the “new era”, both of which work in contrast to past practices. 

The burden to effectively adapt to the new reality continues to rest on leaders and leadership teams – and time is of the essence.  

At issue for many is the fact that new demands and stresses have been placed on old ones, putting leaders, leadership teams, and organizations at risk. 

In order to best ensure success today and moving forward, our first step is to make time to take a fresh look at how we can both indivually and organizationally become healthy, growing, and resilient. 

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The Goal

At any time, a healthy, growing, and resilient organization, allows us to: 

• Realize our mission and make our difference.
• Create value for all those we serve.  
• Increase prosperity for ourselves, our employees, families, communities, and beyond.
• Attract and retain ideal employees and clients to help grow and sustain our success. 

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The Hurdles 

Before COVID-19, several elements were holding organizations back, including: 

• Leadership and management teams who were too busy and consumed by work and work-related demands resulting in growing levels of burnout and lower levels of employee engagement. 
• Too great a focus on client success versus both client and employee success. 
• Too much attention on the ‘urgent’ of the day versus the ‘important’ of the future. 
• A limited appreciation for the genesis and the daily impact of organizational culture. 

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The ideal means to move organizations forward was leadership capacity development as, the fact is: 

• “Leadership is everything” when it comes to organizational success.  
• Leadership in the “new era” has evolved beyond just business strategy to also include culture, diversity, innovation, and sustainability.  
• Leaders need to continuously ‘feed’ others, but rarely ‘get fed’ themselves. 

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What has changed now with COVID-19? 

• For most organizations, there was a temporary suppression of a number of work activities in the name of employee and public health and safety. There is now a continuously changing hybrid model of operations. 
• New acute demands and stresses placed on leaders and leadership teams early on have turned chronic and “new normal” acute demands and stresses have been added (and this is on top of the acute and chronic pressures and stresses put on by the work demands and growth leading up to the crisis).  
• Work forever – specifically in terms of needing to better accommodate remote working and the associated need to improve workflow management, communication, talent development, and the ability to lead from “afar”. 

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“Employees have been experiencing work and life in whole new ways and there will be no going back to the way things fully were.  To succeed moving forward, leaders and organizations will need to establish a new covenant with their teams and employees.”

–Peter C. Atherton, P.E.

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What has not changed with COVID-19? 

• In order to have healthy, growing, and resilient organizations we need to have healthy, growing, and resilient leaders and practitioners. 
• For some, a continuation of large backlogs of work and the reality of having “more work than people”.  For others, the need to continuously find more work with greater competition.  
• The presence of burnout and disengagement throughout organizations, particularly among principals and managers as a result of chronic (and now more acute) work overload and associated personal and work-related frustrations that are most often not fully understood or appreciated (see image below). 

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What is needed to successfully move forward? 

• A new level of awareness and understanding of how the “new era” of business, work, and life must be reconciled with past practices and then integrated with the “new normal” brought forward by COVID-19. 
• A common language and structured process to work through and successfully implement needed team and organizational improvements in a hybrid world and evolving landscape. 
• A “safe-zone” for leaders to be able to “put their own oxygen masks on first” and receive the information and encouragement necessary to lead their teams and organizations forward from a position of knowledge, perspective, and strength. 

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The Value Proposition for Successfully Moving Forward and Preventing Burnout Now: 

• As Individuals – the opportunity to build critical personal, professional, and organizational leadership capacity during this clearly defined period of evolutionary change. 
• As Leadership Teams – the opportunity to leverage new ideas and perspectives to differentiate in the workplace, marketplace, and recruiting space.  
• As organizations – the opportunity to have better tools and processes to achieve the goals of a healthy, growing, and resilient organization presented at the top of this article.  

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“Time is of the essence if we seek to fully engage our teams and ensure their trust and loyalty moving forward. What was at stake before in terms of organizational health, growth, and resiliency is on the line now.”

–Peter C. Atherton, P.E.

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As leaders and practitioners, we are living through a period with great acute stresses and chronic demands. It doesn’t need to lead to overwhelm and it doesn’t need to result in burnout.  

To help you and your team find the path that leads away from overwhelm and burnout and towards greater engagement, resilience, and healthy growth, I offer you access these FREE resources: 

• Audio and PDF downloads with complete chapters of “Reversing Burnout. How to Immediately Engage Top Talent and Grow! A Blueprint for Professionals and Business Owners” that define and walk you through the Burnout-Disengagement Cycle: https://actionsprove.com/products/
• A 12-question quiz to help determine whether you or your team are ‘merely’ feeling overwhelmed or are perhaps burning out.  There’s a big difference between the two and, along with your results, you will receive two special reports designed to help you take control and begin to resolve overwhelm and reverse burnout: https://actionsprove.com/quiz/

To your winning,

PS – Ready to also enhance your leadership, management, employee engagement, and simultaneously increase your impact by design?  Check out our Fast Start Programs. 

PSS – Check out too the AEC Leadership Today Podcast designed exclusively for leaders who want to stay relevant and effective and help their firms grow and prosper during all times >>  HERE!