JetUNsetter

I read recently that Winston Churchill was building blocks to fight depression. Cannot say to what extent this story is true or all details of it of course. The premise of the little story I read about is that the brain gets into a loop when we fail. The message is “I am not good enough for this” and supposedly if a positive self image is not solid within us we are shuttered and believe that we cannot do anything at all. Hence we immobilse and prefer to stay in bed and in misery instead of getting out there and try again.

Supposedly, to fight depression we need exactly what depression would not incentivize us for: action. The simple action of getting out of bed for instance, taking a shower and get ready for a day. Ideally, we need an act of accomplishment. Something to convince our bruised ego that we can actually do it and be good at it. This is what Winston Churchill’s blocks seem to have done: we simple act of building a wall was a tangible accomplishment, something to point the brain at and tell it that Hey, Brain, if you can do this perhaps you can do other things too.

As I was reading this story the first thing that came to mind was a moment from my compote life. I was in the team that was supporting the launch of a shopping mall. It was one of the easiest projects I was involved in and the value of the deals were low. However, there is a shopping mall I can point to and say, tangibly, I was part of it. I put on my pretty cloths and attended the inauguration festivities, I can still go shopping there and feel a sense of accomplishment. My M&A, financings or negotiations that evaporating in the thin air no matter how bigger the value had been evaporated in thin air after the executives signed. I cannot point to anything. Associate my time spent and my effort to nothing.

I would argue that, if the premise of W. Churchill’s story is true, that this is the root of corporate fatigue and even burn out. We send all these emails, attend the meetings, stress over nothing tangible. The teams that sell the product feel remote and not directly relevant to what procurement or even executive committee may do. The client is not present in the meetings, never receives the email. It’s like hard to identify why what we do matters. How about, a CEO that keeps the client in mind. Not themselves or the numbers or the shareholders. How about a town hall that is always about what we do better, what problem we solved in the quarter, specifically. Maybe then that would help teams remember why they exist, why they joined the company, why carry on.

Please help me make sense of this one too…