Hope and help

Welcome to Humans At Work.

I’m glad you’re here. I hope the ideas excite you. I hope you find inspiration and solutions here. I hope you find community.

Above all, I hope you find hope.

As I write this, global financial systems are disintegrating, and people are terribly frightened. It seems like hope is part of what we need right now. Not the hope that is really fear in disguise — if I squeeze my eyes tight and wish hard, the bad things will go away! — but the hope that comes from courage and will and imagination, when people band together and say Let’s do what we must to make things better for all of us. Let’s keep going together. We can do it.

If you’re a manager, you need to be saying that to your team. And then you need to help them do it. You need a sharp focus on priorities, clear communication, and above all the guts to be engaged and authentic and brave all the time so your team can keep doing what they need to do. You need the courage to manage well even if you’re scared; because business needs good managers now more than ever.

If we manage each other well, work together effectively, and stay productive in spite of the stress and fear we’re all feeling, we will get through this. The skills and tools here, and the community we build around them, will help you.

So I say to you: we can do it. We can all be good managers. We can give each other help and hope, and we can keep going — one day, one clear conversation, one problem solved at a time.