Travel Builds Resilience.

Travel Builds Resilience.  If you are traveling this year, bring your patience.  My personal experience has included cancelled, delayed and re-directed flights; LOTS of wait time and creative problem solving.  It has been a lesson in resilience, but also in the skills that we hope all employees bring to the workplace.

• Creative Problem Solving.  In the moment, when your planning goes awry, it is important to get creative.  The presented solution may not be the best alternative.  It is important to think outside of any limiting beliefs which also may mean outside your comfort zone.  Is there a different approach, a ‘for now’ solution, a version 1 solution or a new way to find success and address the current challenges?  With travel, that might mean a different mode of transportation or airport to resolve the problem.

• Focus on Solutions.  The path (literally or figuratively) may not be as planned or preferred, but if it gets you to the destination, can that be the metric of success?  Same outcome, different solution.  For me, a new airline, different route, but arriving at the final destination safely (albeit 9 hours later) was the solve.

• Translate Different ‘Languages’.  Different parts of the business speak different languages or may be focused on different KPIs (key performance indicators).  Can you bridge the gap by translating or finding common ground?  What would be a win for all involved?  This involves active listening, keeping impacted stakeholders engaged and involved, and using your knowledge to advance the process.  When dealing with customer service, well-intentioned gate or reservation personnel, you may need to translate their offerings into solutions that work for your needs.

• Patience in the Face of Chaos.  When a program, process or project starts to unravel, the ability to be the eye of the storm, the calm center, is invaluable.  The employee (traveler) that doesn’t add to the chaos and swirl, or feed into the energy of what is going wrong can win the day.  Seek clarity, keep your cool, and approach from a position of curiosity rather than judgement.  In the end, don’t add fuel to the fire of an already tense situation. 

• Perspective. This is a moment and it too shall pass.  A lost client, a missed deadline, results that were not as projected are all ‘for now’ scenarios. Maintain perspective on the magnitude of the change in plans or direction.

• Learning Opportunities.  What can we learn from this experience?  Every misstep or failure is an opportunity to learn, grow and do better next time.  What could change in the future to make the outcome or experience different going forward?  In work and in travel, there is always much to learn from what did not go as planned.

Rather than wait for my airline to solve my travel snafu, I rebooked on a different airline:  same destination, different timeline and route.  I needed to articulate what I needed from the original carrier after changing my outbound flight to preserve my return.  

While I saw my fellow passengers approach the problem with anger and frustration, I remained remarkably calm, secure in my ability to tap into prior experience and find an acceptable outcome.  All that I had learned in the past came to bear in this moment:  to get me to where I was going, safely, a little more worn for the wear, but happy to arrive.  

It is a privilege to travel.  And the lessons learned over the years have not been lost on me during this difficult season.

Travel safe and work hard – with patience. You are building your resilience.