An example of thinking positively and making the most of a situation

Today we were supposed to move into our new office space. Actually, almost six months ago we were supposed to move into our new office space…

Essentially, Dragon Army is moving into new office space in Old Fourth Ward, right off the BeltLine, into a new, 4-story building. Because it is a new building, there have been more complications than I’m used to. And first there was this delay and then that delay and then who-knew-that-could-be-a-delay, and we’re almost six months past when we thought we could move in.

And today was supposed to be that day. Only we found out on a few days ago that unfortunately, no, its looking like at least another two weeks.

Meanwhile, we’ve had to move our entire company out of our past office space and into innovation space at GA State – thanks, GSU! – but our last day there was yesterday, so now we’re a 40+ employee company without a home for a few weeks…at least :)

On this blog I talk a lot about making the most of a situation. As an entrepreneur, you are constantly challenged with situations like this and its how you react to them that makes the difference in your success. Likewise, Dragon Army has five core values, one of which is “Think Positively”.

So in that spirit, instead of freaking out – which I wanted to do so badly – and instead of trying to quickly find office space for a few weeks which would have been next to impossible, we decided to lean into this situation and turn it into a positive.

I’ve always wanted my team at Dragon Army to be great at working remotely. Now, some companies have an entirely remote workforce, with no physical office, but I’m too used to have my team together and building a culture that way, so I don’t think that’s in our future. But, we are very flexible when people need to work remotely, so it happens quite frequently.

Here’s the idea: we will use this two week period to get really good at remote working. If everyone in the company is forced to find ways to work with each other remotely, we’ll optimize that experience and become very efficient at working together, without being together. Then, when we do get back to having an office and a team member needs to work from home, we’ll be much better at staying productive.

In entrepreneurship and really, in life, its how you look at a situation that makes all the difference. In this case, I choose to say, “Sure, it’s a bummer we can’t move in to the new office today, but in the long-run being forced to work remotely for two weeks gives us a chance to hone that skill, and we’ll be much better for it…plus, the move-in will now be even more exciting since we had to wait a little bit longer.”

Through that lens, I’m now excited we are delayed.

Kinda.