It sucks.
When the pandemic hit, my team and I at BAMF Media knew that even we – who specialized in the digital realm – were going to get hit bad.
Almost overnight, restrictions were raised, normal lives were affected, and to this date, it hasn’t – or will it ever be as it was before.
As the leader and founder of my organization, I knew I had to act fast. I knew I was anxious, not just for my sake, but also because I had a lot of families who depended on the business to stay afloat.
The good news was there were still clients coming through, so I took that in stride and met with my team. We acknowledged the challenges that were in front of us and we went to back to our vision of helping businesses thrive with our digital marketing and LinkedIn optimization services.
In a couple of months, we were able to get the crank going, but it wasn’t easy to say the least.
However, we surprisingly managed to double our productivity and still work towards the higher purpose. Pandemic or not, we had to make sure we were helping our clients reach their goals in our own little ways. And, that was the only thing that mattered.
Here are four things that helped us manage the new normal:
- Your Sensitivity Matters
The one thing that we all have to realize is that we’re suffering from collective grief.
You or a loved one might not be suffering from the virus, but we all feel the grief of dealing with it because everyone is going through it. It’s times like these where you have to be sensitive, to be human, and that’s where your starting point should be.
You have to realize that your team members are going through their own battles, and the pandemic isn’t helping them.
Feelings will always be on edge, but knowing how to listen, understand, and adapt will help you navigate the new normal.
It might sound cliché but one of the hacks – if you would call them that – that we used with each other is listening. It pays to have the entire team to be sensitive to the plight of each other.
- Make Mistakes
I remember telling my one of the newer members of my team, “I’d rather you DO more, even if we make more mistakes, than DO LESS, and make fewer mistakes”
The pandemic didn’t give us a playbook, and we’d be absurd to think that we knew exactly what to do.
This is why I always emphasized the value of doing more and making more mistakes, than doing less and making fewer of them.
Moving forward was the only choice that BAMF Media had as we embraced the new normal, and in doing so, mistakes were made. But, if it weren’t for these mistakes we wouldn’t have been able to move at all.
Here’s another thing that I realized.
When your team is empowered to make mistakes, you help alleviate some of the anxiety that they’re already feeling. You make them more confident and in turn more competent.
During the new normal, I’ve seen so many members of my team rise to new heights, and I’ve never been prouder of them.
- Reshape the Work Environment
When I started BAMF Media, I never thought that we could run operations from an epic studio. Just a couple of years back, we built a large office where everyone could interact with each other.
But, the pandemic now made that impossible.
So, in turn, we had to rethink the work environment.
The first thing you have to understand about productivity is that it’s different when almost your entire team is at working from home. There is no such thing as a 9 to 5.
It would make no sense to force my team to still keep their hours when they when most of us were working in our pajamas.
We decided to let them be more flexible and focus on a more goal-oriented workplace. At first, it can get scary, how could you be sure that your growth hacking team wasn’t watching Netflix all day instead of generating leads for a client’s pipeline?
The truth is you’ll never know, and that’s why I had to shift to the most important part of improving productivity in the new normal.
And, that is…
- Trust
Want to know how you can improve the mental health of most of the people that you manage overnight?
Trust them.
Admittedly, it’s one of the most difficult things that any entrepreneur can do, but you have to do so.
It is one of the most empowering things that you can do for your employees and it has worked wonders for us.
The Results
Half of my team now works remotely, but I’ve never seen them work so hard and achieve so much more.
Sales are higher, traffic is slowly moving back to previous levels, and we’re back into our normal grinds.
But, it’s not just their productivity that’s increased.
Team morale is at an all-time high, group anxiety is minimal, and we’ve learned to be more honest with each other trusting each other in every step of the way.
When we got into the new normal, all I could have hoped for was getting back the business to levels that they were before so that the team could provide for their needs. However, by combining sensitivity, allowing people to make mistakes, changing their workplace, and giving them my trust, they started working harder for our goals, and our vision.
Want to hack growth in the new normal?
Be more human.