Five Words That Got My Team and I Through a Pandemic

When COVID shut everything down in March 2020, I didn't have a pandemic playbook. Nobody did.

We had to close all five of our locations overnight. Our entire business model for Ocaquatics Swim School, teaching kids to swim in person, became impossible.

IT. WAS. TOUGH! 

I remember sitting in my office thinking: How do I want to be remembered for how I acted during this difficult time?

I landed on five words: calm, compassionate, stable, positive, leader.

That became our framework. Every decision we made, every message we sent, every meeting we held, I filtered through those five words.

Calm: don't panic, even when the numbers look terrifying. Your team takes their emotional cues from you. If you spiral, they spiral.

Compassionate: everyone is going through something right now. Give people grace. Listen more than you talk.

Stable: be the anchor. Don't make reactive decisions. Don't cut people loose at the first sign of trouble. Think long term.

Positive: find the opportunity in the crisis. What can we build right now that we never had time for before?

Leader: Lead with people first and always model the behaviour you want to see. 

So that's what we did. We launched virtual activities to keep our team connected. We doubled down on our mentorship programs. We used the downtime to strengthen our culture instead of watching it dissolve.

When we reopened, something remarkable happened. Our team came back stronger, more connected and more loyal. They'd seen how we treated them during the worst of it, and they responded by showing up as their best selves.

The pandemic tested everything about our company. But it also proved that when you lead with people first, your people will carry you through anything.

Those five words are still on my wall above my desk. Calm. Compassionate. Stable. Positive. Leader. They work just as well on a regular Tuesday as they do in a global crisis.