As we experience the COVID-19 global pandemic, business owners around the globe have had to adjust quickly to stay afloat. With so many changes and uncertainty, it is hard to be productive and even harder to avoid conative stress. How can your understanding of conation help you survive – and even thrive – in your business?
Know Your Conative Strengths
First, you must understand your and your team’s conative strengths. We have three parts of the mind – your intelligence, your emotions and motivations, and your natural instincts. While the first two are important, understanding your instincts is key to helping you navigate this unprecedented time with less stress. It is critical to know how you – and those around you – instinctively get things done.
With the spread of COVID-19, how did you keep your business running? Many businesses – including our’s – shifted to remote, online home offices with no personal contact among team members. How you and your team have handled this sudden change reveals a lot about your natural, conative strengths – and stresses.
Know How to Spot Conative Strengths and Conative Stress
Some of you have likely thrived in your conative strengths. For longer Follow Thrus, they have likely created a system to maintain productivity and complete their tasks. Longer Implementors may have figured out how to use various online technologies faster than others. Longer Quick Starts have shifted quickly to new ways of operating as the environment changes daily. Shorter Fact Finders have probably successfully avoided “paralysis through analysis” as they move forward without a lot of information about the pandemic or future plans for commerce.
But you or your team are likely feeling some conative stress, too. Longer Fact Finders will struggle to get the information they need to move forward as the environment changes daily. Shorter Follow Thrus may struggle to complete tasks as they shift to working from home while also managing distance learning with kids, sharing office space with their significant other, finding eggs and toilet paper, and the list could go on…
Make a Plan to Best Allocate Conative Energy
How can you help you and your team use your natural strengths and avoid conative stress in a crisis? First, know and understand your conative strengths, and those of your team. This will help you better allocate your energy and understand what tasks to delegate and to whom, and what tasks you should take on.
Then, consider how to get your team operating mostly in their conative strengths while avoiding prolonged conative stress. Can your longer Follow Thrus design systems for the team to help everyone work remotely well? Can your longer Implementors help the team troubleshoot technology? Can you give your longer Fact Finders more information to help them feel comfortable in their decisions?
Your mind has a finite amount of conative energy. If you can use that energy wisely, you and your team can get through this crisis and be stronger for it.
Make It Happen
Learn more about conation and how it applies to your business. Send us an email at team@illuminateba.com. We can help you measure and understand your conation remotely and host online meetings to discuss how to use this information to help you and your team work better during this time of crisis.