You athletes will probably laugh at this but humor me – there is a point – and it’s a true story!

When I was in basic training I was not much of a runner.  We were doing our final test - a seven-mile run, and I was struggling at about the 5-mile mark when my instructor came up beside me and said something to me that I have never forgotten.  He said; “I can see that you are getting tired and you have quite a ways to go”  Then he said, “Don’t think about the end; instead just keep putting one foot in front of the other one.” 

In this time of pandemic, we are intensely caring for our families, our clients, our company, and our careers—and in some cases even schooling our children at home, or caring for loved ones and neighbors. We are giving 110% to everything at once. Many of us have become adept at this, working virtually, leading meetings remotely, hurtling forward day-after-day.

But too often we are not caring for ourselves. Though we are strong, leading the way daily, our minds and bodies need breaks too.

ALULA has worked as a virtual company for years, so we’ve learned a lot about staying healthy in “the virtual life”—physically, mentally, and emotionally. Here’s some advice, especially for those who may not be accustomed to working from home.

When a crisis hits, many companies turn their attention outwards. Understandably, business leaders spend time crafting external messages and planning for ongoing communication to clients, partners, and other external stakeholders. Equally important, business leaders need to craft plans for nurturing and strengthening internal relationships through ongoing communications. 

In these uncertain times, your team members will have deep-seated concerns about their health, their families, and job security. It is critical that you recognize the value they bring to the continuity of your operations and to your organization’s culture. How you relate to your team during this worldwide pandemic will have lasting consequences.

It is critical to maintain solid relationships that demonstrate trust and respect, inspire, show empathy, and create positive accountability. Your primary role as a leader in these times is to ensure that people continue to feel valued, heard, and connected.

We are facing times of true uncertainty, and that means leaders, their organizations, and the people within them are faced with enormous challenges. Most people have a hard time dealing with unknowns, and this can be exacerbated by a relative lack of information, or, as is the case in the current situation, an abundance of information that causes fear and concern. People have questions, and leaders find they don’t have all the answers. As more information becomes available, leaders must realize that their decisions are now much more than just business decisions. What leaders say and do next can ultimately have significant implications for their people and affect individual lives and careers.

There’s a lot of discussion about Gen Z and the impact they will have on the workforce. The Wall Street Journal reports that they seek financial stability and are industrious. Inc. Magazine tells us they are culturally diverse and risk averse. Forbes says that they want to be judged on their own merit and they want to work with autonomy.

In every work environment you’ll hear talk of teams.  Teams are formed deliberately and carefully to achieve the objectives and goals of an organization.

Many of us are part of multiple teams—a core team, plus at least one cross-functional team. In our work with many Fortune 100 companies, we know that the best teams all possess the same secret for success: a leader who knows how to create and lead a high-performing team.  

ALULA recently had the opportunity to participate at The POWER of Professional Women conference in Philadelphia, PA. During the conference we had the opportunity to engage with Millennial panelists, active in the workforce, to find out why they change jobs and what companies can do to retain them. Research shows that 21% of Millennials changed jobs in the past year, and 60% say they are open to new job opportunities.

How to love. How to live. How to fix anything. How to lose weight. How to stop worrying. How to train your dog, bird, cat or dragon. How to manage projects. How to manage time. How to set goals. How to influence people. How to negotiate anything with anybody. How to survive the zombie apocalypse.

We live in a "how-to” world. A quick search of “how to” in Amazon.com yields over 800,000 books and videos with the phrase in the title. The popular For Dummies series has over 2,500 titles and the Idiot’s Guide series has nearly as many. And take a look at your local newsstand and you’ll see covers littered with articles telling you the 5 things you must know, the 3 insider secrets that will guarantee success, or the 7 steps to improved performance.