Michele Aikens How to Turn Transition into an Opportunity Michele Aikens is the CEO and Lead Coach of Sepia Prime Communications and Coaching (SPCC) which helps leaders and their teams embrace change with courage and compassion. This means acknowledging the messy parts of change: understanding, for example, that corporate culture may not reflect the beautifully written mission statement. She tells us more about it over the next pages. As we learn to improve, we encourage compassion with leaders and their teams as they discover new ways of relating to each other. SPCC has developed a coaching program for teams because the new normal will require even greater collaboration to successfully navigate the new ways of doing and being in business. The “Re-Writing the Script” © program uses the analogy of creating a story to help teams take a wider look at their organisations. For example, we use the term “plot twist” to talk about the thing no one expected to happen in the story, but that moves the team toward a successful outcome by harnessing their resourcefulness and creativity. We have been thrust into this new normal by, among other things, a worldwide pandemic. This “plot twist” forced organisations to quickly find ways for employees to work away from the office. After the immediate problem of how to implement strategies for working at home, the big question became: “How will our business survive this new way?”. I believe this plot twist forced leaders to implement new ways of connecting with customers and implementing services while evaluating the organisation’s role in the local community. When Thomas Friedman wrote The World is Flat almost 20 years ago, we were only beginning to understand the effects of globalisation on business. The plot twist called COVID-19 accelerated our understanding of what it meant to communicate across the globe virtually, daily. As coaches, we worked with leaders and their teams in the office or at an offsite location. Our work is hands-on, personal, and pivotal. In March of 2020, a colleague got a phone call on the way to the airport saying: “Don’t get on the plane. Log into Zoom for the meeting.” As coaches to leaders, we didn’t have the luxury of guessing how we would interact with our clients – this was the most critical time most of them had ever faced! Instantly our mode of connecting shifted from inperson to online. We were able to provide the same service, wi t hou t the
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