Important Lessons Learned From the Pandemic

In this TED Talks video, Patty McCord, an executive coach, principal of Patty McCord Consulting, author of Powerful; Building a Culture of Freedom and Responsibility, speaks about how we can change the way we work by sharing four valuable lessons learned from the pandemic itself.

McCord says that it was possible for us to change and improve the way we work before the pandemic, but somehow our resistance to change and feeling of uncertainty triumphed and it took a pandemic for us to realize that we had the ability to change the way we work all along. One of the first work lessons learned from the pandemic was that our team is not our family and by confusing these two extremes we might fail to find a reasonable solution for both. So, in order to strike a good balance between the two and work well, she advises to separate the work that you do as a team from the work that you do in your family.

Another one of the lessons learned from the pandemic is to stop controlling people to make them work and stop judging them based on the factors like when they work or the amount of time they put in. Instead, start treating them as adults and focusing on the results or the output they deliver because that is the best parameter to judge an individual’s work performance. She rejoices at the fact that it is finally happening during the pandemic.

The pandemic era has definitely changed the way we communicate and as a result of direct and clear conversation, working individuals are well aware of the organization’s goal and their responsibilities unlike the orthodox ways, where information gradually traveled from top level executives to the bottom level employees.

She urges people to push the boundaries and rethink the way we work. It is time to identify and permanently get rid of the things that have become irrelevant from the future’s perspective and assimilate the new outstanding ways that we have discovered moving forward in order to improve an organization’s work culture and work performance.