I am wrapping up this week by leveraging the focus on 9/11 and pointing on how we can honor people with more intention.
I took a risk by posting a reminder last week with a few call to action ideas for y’all and with writing a post on 9/11, and I am grateful to have done it.
In one of the meetings I had with a colleague on Wednesday, we gave each other space to share our experiences of 9/11 and the aftermath.
She lived 30 minutes from NYC and had expressed the trauma that she and others experienced that day and the months after. That you could see the blood rush from people as they tried to comprehend what was happening. That the building was still burning in November, a couple of months after the attacks, when she was volunteering to help clean up and recover. A coworker of hers whose son was born the day before, did not know how to celebrate their birth in such traumatic times.
To this day, the traumatic event causes deep and strong emotions for her. I’m grateful to have been able to hear her story while working on a really cool app we're developing.
I have been providing examples and ideas of bringing people together lately. This is because tragic and traumatic events typically bring people together.
However, I would like to witness more business leaders bring more people together, more often.
Businesses, communities, and lives will thrive if this was the norm.
And, here’s a little thing that most leaders forget…
START SMALL AND SIMPLE
It does not need to be a huge act! Start small and simple.
To continue on with this simple and smaller act that definitely will help bring people together, I want to share a couple very common situations that my clients face when trying to celebrate or honor someone that had a major life-event occur.
Here we go… You ready for the first one?
Birth!
Yup!
Everyone is born.
Not everyone gives birth or experiences a child being born into this world, but odds are that that you work with someone that is or has been impacted by a child being born.
A fun way to celebrate and honor that person and the baby is to send that person a teddy bear.
Yes, a teddy bear. They are cute and provide people joy to meet the occasion.
I have even seen one company create a newborn shirt with their logo on it and put it on the teddy bear to give it a branding touch.
Nonetheless, it signifies that as a leader you see the person and what they are going through is important.
Ready for the second life event everyone experiences…
Death!
Yes, we all will die and we will experience people dying.
It's a hard truth of life.
Because death is often accompanied by strong negative emotions, a lot of leaders do not know what to do other than give the standard "I’m here for you. Do you need time off?" type of care to their employees. They often miss opportunities because of feeling uncomfortable or uncertain about what to do when strong negative emotions exist.
Those are totally important and necessary, however, they might not inform the person grieving that they are not alone.
When I ran a leadership development program at a Fortune 100 company, we experienced a number of our leaders losing loved ones throughout the program. When this happened, we would send a beautiful pop-up card with a personalized message to make sure that person knew we know they are experiencing loss and that we are of support to them with our abilities. The feedback after the program from these participants was conclusive that it made a lasting, positive impact on them.
Either of these ideas are simple to execute and can setup ahead of time to still be authentic and meaningful to the recipient. Both of these examples have brought people together to celebrate and honor the lives impacted.
Now, I understand that these are only two ideas. I’m sure there are more that you or others have that are even better!
Please share in the comments other ways that we can celebrate and honor people through positive and negative major life experiences.
You are a Force of Awesome!
Let’s go!
I am an executive/leadership coach working with high-achieving business owners, leaders, and their teams that are working on getting to their next level of performance. You might sense that what got you here might not get you to the next achievement. Want to connect? Contact me here.
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