Unpacking

I’ve been asked to start a moving company. Partly tongue in cheek — I’ve gotten really, really good at moving people. I’ve moved at least one person every year for the past 12 years, often more than one. I certainly didn’t anticipate that happening, but between family members needing a hand with a divorce, friends getting remarried, hurricanes, a mother moving to assisted living, multiple college and career moves for sons, office growth, etc., I’ve gotten it down to a science. The logistical planning is a fun challenge (but not one I want to do for a living!). But I’m experienced to the point that I prefer to avoid using the moving service to pack — something inevitably ends up broken, crushed, or missing. Packing crews work hard, and it’s an unintentional consequence, but no one is going to care like you do. Nothing is labeled exactly right, and you have to open 25 boxes to find one specific item. Do it yourself, and you can create unpacking zones with your most urgent boxes like the coffee maker and towels labeled an “A”, the ones with your Christmas decorations might be a “Z.“

This summer, we had to move offices. We had long outgrown the old office; it was tiny, cramped, and chock full of stacks of materials, books, electronics, and client session leftovers.

This time, I was determined that I wouldn’t lift a finger. It was the middle of our busy season, and I had been traveling nonstop, but we were on a time deadline to vacate the old space. The movers came and did their thing, and everything was boxed up and delivered to the new address under our assistant’s supervision.

Sounds great, right? All I had left was the unpacking, easy!

The truth is that I took one look at the mountain of boxes, stacked to the ceiling, nothing labeled, already collapsing boxes, and immediately thought (despite the offers from our assistant), this is going to have to wait until I can devote two weeks to sorting it out. Our team is fully remote, and while any of them would be more than willing to come in and help, until I had a good plan for the new space, there wasn’t much anyone could effectively do.

Fast forward five months: this weekend, I started unpacking. As anticipated, the boxes are a mishmash of items, some crushed, some bent, nothing organized. There’s also the surprise element of “how in the world did this end up mixed up with the stuff in this box?!” As usual, my brain went off into la la land, imagining all the ways a moving company could do it better. (Imagine what it will be like when robots move us!)

But it also occurred to me that there was something to think about here for how we work with clients.

A big part of our work is helping a team leader “unpack” what’s going on with their team, what’s holding them back from their best performance and results.

To unpack is to reveal something hidden, to unburden, to remove.

The very act of unpacking means that events, conversations, missed moments across the team have been crammed into a metaphorical box, disorganized and random, some intact, some bent and broken.

While talking with us can open the door to revealing those things, it only buys short-term relief. Venting doesn’t equal change.

Helping that leader sort through the noise to find the signal, the leverage point, the key to unburdening their team and their future is the real work of unpacking. Of course, they get to the make the decision about doing the work the unpacking reveals will be required, but they will find themselves equipped to make that decision with clarity.

Packing the boxes is the easy part. The real work is the unpacking and making decisions about what to do with what you find.