Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius once said, “Reject your sense of injury and the injury itself disappears.”
That got me thinking about how just about every conversation I have, work and personal, starts with a question or discussion about how we’re dealing with this crisis.
Regardless of the response, there’s always a sense of injury – and rightfully so. It’s been a horrific experience for just about everyone.
But, as I thought about these exchanges it occurred to me that as communicators, we need to level set and reject the sense of injury.
Not to say we should ignore what we’ve been through – that’s crazy. We need to use that to inform our plans.
But as we’re creating our plans to get our companies and our clients past this mess, we need to separate what we’ve gone through to reject that sense of injury so we can move forward.
Yes, this has been a tough time for us, but it’s not about us.
I had a former colleague who said something that will always stick with me. He said, we live the nightmare so others can live the dream.
While it doesn’t have to be that extreme, our jobs as communicators are to connect with people and to bring meaning to those connections with the companies and brands we represent, so THEY can live the dream.
If we’re going to do this effectively moving forward, we need to reject that sense of injury that we’ve encountered over the last 10 weeks.
It won’t go away, nor should it, but we need to level set in our own minds, as well as with our campaigns to the way things are now, and how they are evolving.
I’ve been talking a lot about the RADD approach – and this is the first step. Recognizing the situation for what it is.
And we can’t do that until we move past the “injury,” reconciled what’s happened, and then recognize where we are so we can move forward.
We are the frontlines of helping the world move forward and bringing a sense of normalcy that we’re all craving.
I’ve said this in previous posts, but there’s a bright future ahead with a lot of opportunity, for both the organizations we represent as well as the audiences that we’re communicating with.
We’ve also been discussing how you can find success following the Coronavirus crisis through the RADD approach, which is Recognize, Adapt, Develop, and Deploy. Check out our previous posts to see how you can succeed with the RADD process:
– Get RADD And Plan For Success Following Coronavirus Crisis
– Prepare for Success and Get RADD, Part 1: Recognize
– Finding Success By Getting RADD, Part 2: Adapt
– Get RADD, Part 3: Develop Plans For Success
– Deploying Your RADD Communications Plan
Here are some additional resources for your crisis planning efforts as you adapt to your new worlds:
– There’s Still Time To Communicate During the Coronavirus Crisis
– Isolation Is Actually Connecting Us In Meaningful Ways
– Is Pitching Media A Good Idea During COVID-19?
– Internal Communications During A Crisis
– A Meaningful Message, Or Pandering Without Purpose
And here are some additional blogs to help with your strategic communications planning:
– Pitching Media Like The Pros
– 7 Tips for Successful Media Interviews
– Don’t Let Perfect Be The Enemy Of Effective
– Wake Up. Kick Ass. Repeat.
– How to Create Content That Engages Audiences and Builds Brand Trust Quickly
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