In the book Work as a Spiritual Practice, author Lewis Richmond relates a story about a search for a new company president. The senior executives were given confidential reports to review for each candidate. In one candidate's file under a section titled Weaknesses was a notation that stated, "Candidate has not failed." The search firm saw a lack of experience in failure as a negative. If the candidate lacked the experience of going down with the ship, what knowledge and skills would they draw on in times of inevitable stress or decline? Could they handle it or would they panic and run?

During the pandemic we all experienced circumstances that mirrored failure. We may not have personally failed but we lived with uncontrollable circumstances providing setbacks we could not run from, mimicking the emotional response of failure.

What did we learn about how we might handle failure in the future?

How we define success often times sets us up to consider an event a failure. In times of failure our own limitations and unrealistic expectations can cause us to stop our efforts and alter our feelings of self-worth.

In the pandemic we learned to redefine many expectations. We pushed past limitations. We couldn’t allow our self-worth to be challenged. We had to challenge ourselves to do everything as best we could. Parents became school teachers, work teams became remote individual contributors. The activities that made us feel good about ourselves like going to the gym or meeting family or friends were not possible.

We learned there is a lot we cannot control. We also learned there is one thing we can always control. We can control our thoughts.

Our thoughts influence our experience of any situation. In the pandemic, if our thoughts were fearful, we could find plenty of things to fear. If our thoughts were hopeful, driven by patience and acceptance, they helped us cope and adapt as needed.

This is a lesson that will serve us well as we encounter setbacks in the future.

Richmond states there is no curriculum to learn to fail. It is not taught as a subject in business school. Our curriculum this past year was living through the pandemic. It taught us what failure feels like, and how capable we are to cope.

The year 2020 brought a myriad of opinions and articles about whether the handshake was dead. What was the cause of death according to an article in the New Yorker? "Sudden awareness by the general population that every surface on earth is misted with an invisible, potentially lethal cocktail of viral droplets."

Disease experts do not think we should ever shake hands again. Doctors have long been split on whether shaking hands in a healthcare environment was advisable. Some felt it was a sure way to spread disease to patients. Others felt that not shaking hands would erode the patient doctor bond even though fewer than 10% of patients wanted to be greeted by a handshake.

Neuroscientists say that the areas in the brain that are involved in processing rewards are activated when we shake hands much like when we eat food. Welcome touch lowers stress and releases oxytocin which promotes bonding.

Touch like we experience in the handshake reduces aggression according to the director of the Touch Research Institute at the University of Miami. Just look at primates who spend time grooming each other. Their touch is a way of making relationships.

For over 2800 years the handshake was an appropriate way for humans to come in contact. Many believed it evolved as a method to show you weren’t holding a weapon. It represented relationship and trust. It was familiar and accepted.

So can it really be dead...or dying?

Time will tell. We haven’t found an adequate replacement for the handshake and what it represents. Waiting patiently in line to replace it are the elbow bump, the hand on the heart and the wave to name a few. But as of now nobody’s buying into any one form and that means interactions are not only devoid of an agreed upon way to connect but that they are...awkward.

How do we make the inevitable greetings less awkward? The handshake really begins with eye contact. Lock eyes with the person you are greeting. Arrange yourself shoulder to shoulder (an appropriate distance apart). Being in sync with posture non-verbally communicates you are in alignment. For the time being you will have to decide what comes next. Whether you shake or not, your eyes and posture are already communicating you are welcoming the other person in.

Gwyneth Paltrow had one. So did Jay Leno, Susan Lucci, Christina Aquilara and Dan Rather. Michael Jordan had one and was one. As was Oprah.

What are we talking about?

Mentors.

Mentoring is one of the oldest forms of influence. We can trace the idea of a mentor back in history to the Greek tale of Homer and his friend Mentor.

The origin of the word mentor meant trusted counselor and guide. The son of Odysseus in Homer's epic story of the Trojan War had a tutor named Mentor.

Today, a mentor is an individual who shares personal insights and provides guidance and support to enhance the performance and career development of another. Research has shown those who have mentors outperform those who don’t. Coming off of the pandemic mentors can be extremely helpful. Their experience can make them more readily able to identify and capitalize on silver linings. They can help their mentees do the same.

In a Feb 2021 Forbes article "This is what the Best Mentors Do", Dr. Ruth Gotian interviewed Dr. Kathy Kram, the Shipley Professor in Management Emerita at Boston University Questrom School. Kram has done decades of research on mentoring. The interview revealed Kram’s ideas of two important functions of a mentor.

According to Kram, "The mentor can offer career support by increasing the mentee's exposure and visibility, offering them challenging work assignments, sponsoring them for opportunities, and protecting them from people and tasks that can derail their careers. The psychosocial functions build the mentee’s competence, confidence, and effectiveness in their professional role. The emotional supporting functions can include role modeling the proper way of dealing with challenges and successes."

Kram believes that mentoring has evolved, and we should have not just one but a team or network of potential mentors. Any time we are dealing with a significant change like a new job or role, she suggests doing an assessment of our mentoring network by asking these questions.

How is my current network serving me? Is there anything in front of me that would benefit from greater assistance?

When looking for a mentor Kram notes that expertise is not enough. They must have the bandwidth to be helpful for the given situation. We should test their availability and test the waters before jumping in.