Ever come to the sudden realisation of something that’s been creeping up on you?
On the last Sunday of December 2018, while driving my daughters to church, I realised that I couldn’t see properly out of my left eye. Now I’d been seeing weird lights out of the corner of my eye for a week, but I put it down to overwork and figured it would pass.
But that Sunday, I looked to my left to change lanes and realised that I had no peripheral vision! As soon as I caught up with my husband, I had him take me to the hospital and the next day I had emergency surgery to repair my detached retina.
Now the interesting thing about the surgery is that they put a gas bubble in your eye to help the repair set and that completely covers your pupil so you can’t see at all! I’m four weeks post-surgery and the gas bubble is still covering about 70% of my pupil.
They say that if you lose on of your senses your other senses become stronger, I’m not sure about that but I can say that I am having to be far more intentional in the things that I do and how I do them and that has caused me to look at things differently. For example, I have lost my depth perception, which means that things aren’t where I think they are. This means I have to touch the table before I put my glass down or it may hit the floor. My phone has not made it to the table several times (thank God for screen protectors)!
Sometimes in our rush to get things done, we only look at the surface and don’t look at the depth of an issue. We get carried away with what we assume an issue is and then wonder why the solution didn’t work.
I had a client come to me for assistance with staffing issues, but as the conversation continued and I delved into the situation. I could see how inconsistencies in behaviour and not addressing issues had led to some of the issues. So rather than starting a formal disciplinary process we reviewed the team job descriptions, set clear SMART Objectives and had meetings with staff to clearly communicate to new way forward for the business. Three months later the business is going from strength to strength, as boundaries have been set and reinforced where necessary.
Disciplining a couple of members of the team wouldn’t have fixed the underlying issues and may even have made the atmosphere in the office worse.
Are you taking the time to really look and listen to assess the depth of the issue or challenge before you move forward?
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