Leanne Hainsby is a fantastic athlete and an even better trainer. She effortlessly motivates thousands of her students every day with innovative Peloton workouts and during the past several months it’s been a pleasure training with her. Leanne of course has no idea who I, or the other 100,000 riders who take her classes are, but through the magic of Peloton it feels like she is giving me personal training and coaching.

Leanne and the team of Peloton trainers all follow a basic template of mixing music, motivation, and intense training that help train more than 2 million subscribers. One of the most interesting techniques that they use is something called the “Active Recovery.”

In physical training, Active Recovery is the engagement of low-intensity exercise after completing a heavy workout or athletic event. As contradictory as it may seem, the best way to recover from running a 26-mile marathon or other sports competition is to exercise at a lower intensity rather than staying in bed resting.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention as of today about 85 million people (25.2% of the total population) have been fully vaccinated. The same agency is projecting that 85% of the United States will be fully vaccinated by August 15, 2021. That is a critical number because it is at 85% when the herd immunity will kick in and this part of the pandemic will be over.

Over the past few weeks there has been a growing buzz about what is really going to happen when the pandemic is over in terms of employees returning to the “office” or other places of work were people are together. As part of our ongoing research into Business Leadership, we’ve been speaking with executives and human resources professionals about their expectations, and it is trending toward no easy or definitive answer. In addition, we’ve also been listening to the experts such as Korn Ferry and Josh Bersin who both do an outstanding job of researching and getting to the pulse of key issues.

The post-pandemic world, also known as the “new normal,” is providing lazy salespeople with more excuses for not achieving their goals and objectives. Since the start of the new year, I have conducted dozens of interviews and focus groups with sales professionals as part of my work building our Strategic Business Selling curriculum. An overwhelming number of the salespeople I have talked with report that “gaining access” to prospects and existing customers has never been more difficult.

“Because of COVID, nobody wants to see me. Everyone has been either locked down, working at home, or working in a facility that won’t accept visitors.”

If you are somebody who feels this way and has stated the above, I have some very bad news for you. The reason they don’t want to see you, and are probably conducting virtual meetings with your competitors, is because you are not offering them a valuable business reason for doing so. Why would anyone in this busy world waste their time on your products if they perceive no value or benefit?

3 Insights from a Business Acumen Perspective

It’s starting up again and this time it’s going to be bigger and bolder than anything we’ve ever seen before. Welcome to Acquisitionmania 2021. Microsoft’s announcement of the acquisition of Nuance for nearly $20 billion is going to be just the beginning of what will surely be a wild ride as the economy comes back from the pandemic and the pent up demand for big deals plays out over the rest of the year.

One of the many learnings coming from the pandemic is that if your company survived, that’s great. It’s resilient and quite valuable. If your company has thrived, then it’s worth a lot of money! A lot of strategy, hard work, and being in the right place at the right time has positioned strong companies to get even stronger or to be acquired, providing their investors incredible and well-earned returns on their investments.

Earlier today, I was co-facilitating a leadership development workshop for a group of global leaders intensely preparing and developing their skills to be more effective leaders both today and tomorrow.

One of the discussion topics of the day was developing empathy skills. As I was listening to my co-facilitator do a great job of explaining the concepts and engaging with the group, I started to notice the dialogue in the group and among participants was different than any I have ever heard before. In listening to the great conversations, I picked up on two interesting themes coming from 42 leaders in the virtual session:

1. The group had a deeper sense of the value of themselves than I’ve ever experienced.
2. They had a purer empathy for others than I’ve ever heard.