Leading Your Team Through Unexpected Circumstances
Last night, my husband and I did an escape room in complete darkness.
If you're an escape room lover, you'll know that this is unusual.
So many of the strategies for solving puzzles in typical escape rooms require the ability to look around, observe patterns or connected problems, and literally see ways to put puzzles together or decode mysteries.
We've done escape rooms many times, but never one like this.
And it was clear from the moment we walked in that many of the strategies we were used to relying on - ones that had helped us successfully complete dozens of rooms before this - were not going to work here.
To win as a team, we had to:
Rely on other senses.
Know our individual and team strengths.
Find new ways to intake, understand, and share information.
Listen well and retrace our steps to observe something we'd missed.
Stay committed to clear and consistent communication.
And a few times, we needed to ask for help from the game manager.
There were puzzles we couldn't crack, and we needed someone to help us better understand the rules governing this particular environment.
For many of the brilliant nonprofit leaders I work with, this situation has so many parallels to their work.
Whether entering a new organization or pivoting during a time of transition, the environment has changed, the rules or restrictions are different, and they need to lean on different strengths and strategies than they were used to leveraging before.
They may also need expert help from someone who can help them better understand where they are now and how to get to where they want to be.
Connecting with a trusted strategic advisor - someone who can help with navigating this new terrain - helps leaders and their teams:
Understand their current environment,
Identify better ways of working,
Make meaningful progress, and
Improve their organization in ways that build culture and impact.
If you're a nonprofit executive ready to get the right support so you can set yourself, your team, and your organization up for success, let’s set up some time to connect.