Tales of the unexpected.

I saw last week one of the most impressive things I have seen in some time.


At my work we recently found that one of our key funders does not intend to continue funding one of our projects. This would mean the redundancy of 2 members of staff, including a director, plus several sessional staff, and mean that the charitable service we provide for almost nothing for 65 kids would be lost. It would also mean the end of 10 years work on the project - a long time for something in the charitable field.


We were due to have a meeting about it, but I wanted to give our director the heads up anyway. I explained the position, to his understandable shock. We had the meeting one hour later - he had already developed a plan how to make the entire project self-sustaining.


One hour. Think seriously, if someone said to you that you might be losing your job in a month, could you kill the shock, get creative and solidify that idea in one hour?


I was seriously impressed.


I've come to think recently that this kind of refocussing is one of the prime skills for people these days. Its about how we deal with insecurity, with change, with the unexpected. We live in that kind of world - so the kind of person that can deal with it has a huge advantage.


How do we even get there? 


Confidence, clearly, is one thing. I know, as the director did, that he would get another job and most likely soon.


Secondly, its about already being used to change. If your only concern is a logical one about finances, well, that's just another task to be managed like any other. If your fear is actually about change, which is being manifested in terms of worrying about specific things, thats something hard to deal with. This person travels all over the world, spends all his time moving from one location to another, meeting new people in different countries. He's doesnt live the normal 9 to 5. This means that he doesnt worry about things like a new route to work, new colleagues, new sights and sounds, new bosses, new time schedules, a new desk etc. Lots of people wouldn't mind doing new jobs as long as they could do them at the same desk. 


Finally its about getting moving. When I spoke to him after, he said he simply thought "how can i make this work" - and as soon as he started moving, he carried on. When you get hit by shock, you feel helpless. As soon as you start doing something you start to feel in control.


So my aim for the coming weeks is to explore this issue..