How important would you say “Predictability” is in your business life as a woman in business? Is it a 10? Perhaps a 5? Or perhaps it is not important for you at all. This past Memorial Day weekend, I was comfortably placed in a chaise lounge with my ice tea, sun glasses and a stack of reading material. I picked up my Harvard Business Review and found it full of great ideas and information. This is one of the topics: “Predictability” in the workplace.
This one word set me off on a journey about thinking how as humans we thrive on the predictable. Think about that. We expect Spring to come around every year, we expect to go to the pool and have a backyard bar-be-que with hot dogs and hamburgers on the 4th of July, we expect the leaves to turn in the fall, perhaps a bouquet of flowers or a present on our birthday and so on. Life is predictable. The laundry needs to be done, dishes need to be washed, etc. Life is predictable.
What about the workplace? What is predictable about that? You arrive and your inbox is full of emails, the phone rings all day long, there are deadlines, reports, spreadsheets, meetings and so on that happen just like clock work.
What happens when something “Unpredictable” happens? What goes through your head? What happens in your own thought process?
This is where we get to the nitty gritty of life. What we choose to do at that very moment of the “disruption”, the “unpredictable item” is where we either shine or get a really bad tarnish.
Each one of us has a series of steps that we process through, even if you are not aware of what they are.
Next time we will learn what they are.