The building project was a total disaster. It had been underway for decades and was nowhere near completion. In fact, it looked more like a ruin than a building under construction. A half-dozen architects had already worked on the project, and the multiple designs were incompatible and badly conceived.

My book, Curating Your Life, was published on April 8. News flash – the middle of a pandemic is not the best time to launch a book! But there’s also some good news. Although I wrote the book long before anyone had heard of COVID-19, it turns out that learning how to manage your energy for peak productivity is a highly relevant topic in this challenging time. As a result, I’m getting plenty of opportunities to write and speak about the book, including a recent “Coffee and Connect” session for the Executives’ Club of Chicago. 

We talked about how the demands on our energy have changed. Some of the tasks that used to exhaust us – commuting, hosting big meetings, going to networking events – are no longer such a big part of our lives. At the same time, other demands have ramped up – learning new technologies, connecting through Zoom and other media, doing our own housework, cooking all the meals and spending much more time with family members. The specifics vary from person to person, but the challenge is the same – how do we manage our energy for peak productivity and joy during this strange time?

As I write this on March 10, I’m feeling helpless. I hate that! So far, my daily life is pretty normal. I’m in my downtown Chicago office, and I just got back from a large lunch meeting listening to some very interesting panelists. My day, and the rest of my week, is heavily scheduled with both in-person and phone meetings. 

Meanwhile, I’m waiting for the tidal wave to hit: the day when everything gets cancelled, when my clients suffer severe financial losses, when my travel is curtailed, when people I care about start getting sick, when I get sick. It’s really scary, and it feels as if there’s nothing I can do. As I said, I hate that!

Each week GGC Principal Gail Golden lets us take a look at her open tabs to see what’s going on in the world of workplace psychology. Here are her insights on the week’s news….

You run a business in an industry where competition for top talent is gruesome. Not only that, but your industry is being disrupted from several directions. How do you attract and retain the best people so you can innovate quickly? According to Weber Shandwick CEO Andy Polansky, the key is to listen – to your employees and to your clients. It sounds simple, but his article shows how demanding it really is. It means getting out of your office to engage with employees at all levels of the company. It means road trips to spend time with key clients. And it means keeping an open mind to others’ priorities and perspectives. GGC is proud to have partnered with Weber Shandwick through the past decade of turbulence, and we applaud Polansky’s vision and his emphasis on creating the right culture to make magic happen.

Each week GGC Principal Gail Golden lets us take a look at her open tabs to see what’s going on in the world of workplace psychology. Here are her insights on the week’s news….

This week I thought I’d let my colleagues answer two pressing management questions. The first comes from Molex CEO Martin Slark, who spoke to the Executives’ Club of Chicago last week. The key responsibility of a business leader is to create value for the company and the customers he or she serves. And how do you create that value? According to Slark, there are four essential elements:

• a foundation of integrity
• clear vision
• a focus on satisfying customers’ desires
• creative destruction

Slark pointed to three companies as examples of creative destruction. The world’s largest transportation company owns no vehicles (Uber). The world’s largest hospitality company owns no properties (Airbnb). And the world’s largest retail company owns no stores (Amazon). By providing value to their customers, these businesses have built a new world!