I know that many of my posts have been about our recent Viking Cruise, but there were so many memorable experiences that I feel I could fill a book if I captured and shared everything. When you’re on this type of river cruise, you are on a longboat. It’s hard to grasp how literal that is because our boat was 447 feet long !! You couldn’t get an angle to take a picture from your phone and get the entire boat in the frame.
Our trip started on the Danube River in Budapest, Hungary. We ended up traveling on the Danube, the Main (pronounced “mine”), and the Rhein by the time we ended in Amsterdam in the Netherlands. In order to successfully navigate all three of these very different rivers, we had to pass through multiple locks. The captain told us that there were 67 we’d traverse over the course of our voyage. When we entered the first in the series, everyone was geeked to go to the top deck to see what was involved with this process. Our maritime crew were true artists. They maneuvered our vessel into the lock with ease.
Their skill was on display each time we went through a lock because each river brought different challenges. We were sailing against the current on the Danube which was a moderately wide river. The Main was very narrow and it wound in various ways. The Rhein was vast and massive. You’d see smaller vessels on the Danube and Main, and then see ships transporting shipping containers on the Rhein !! Every lock was unique. Some, like the first one we went through, had plenty of space in front, back, and both sides of the boat. Others were extremely narrow and tight so that the boat “just fit” in the lock. There were a few where we could open our sliding cabin door and touch the wall of the lock !!
If you’ve never seen a lock, they allow boats to enter them and then close off the flow of water from the river on both sides. If you come into the lock where the water level is at the top of the lock, they slowly lower you to the level where you should be to move forward once the gates are opened. If you come in and you’re below the top of the lock, water is added to the lock so the boat rises to the new level you need to be at in order to advance. As you can see from our first lock in this picture, we were about to be raised.
I think HR can be like locks on a river for your employees. As they’re traveling through their daily passage of work, you can slow them down. Be like the crew we had. Help them maneuver carefully and safely into your HR lock. Once they’re in position, you can either encourage them to lift them up or you can calm them down by empathetically listening to them.
We can control the flow of their day, and how long they should be in the lock. It is different based on the circumstances they’re currently facing or who they’re working with. Whether you are calming someone down or lifting them up, the goal is for them to level out so they move forward. So, instead of being a gatekeeper in your HR role, why not be the passage of locks to help them intentionally pause, breathe, and then head out to continue their day?
I love the idea of making sure our employees have safe passage. Being able to be their workplace environment captain is a role that I cherish. Let’s transform who we are and what we do from those who confine to those that equip and enable. Be a lock !!
