Written by: Ashley Jude, EVP, Clients and Marketing at Lions & Tigers

Today is Monday 

In the Seattle area we’re about three weeks in.

• My kids’ soccer field is now a field hospital.
• I’ve only driven 12 miles in 19 days.
• We’re playing Yahtzee with friends on video conference.
• I haven’t printed this many math worksheets in my entire life.
• We throw chalk-scribbled games on the sidewalk and watch with endless delight as kids hopscotch to the final question and start debating “which bear is best?”

Today is Monday (honestly, I wasn’t sure, I had to check last night). We got up this morning, we went to work, we went to school, we just never left the house.

It is all so wildly different and yet, we’ve had to figure out how to keep moving forward. To make it feel the same.

This is a thank you and note of support to our Lions & Tigers team and all the rest of you out there whose work and personal lives turned inside out overnight. We appreciate the effort.

Stay home. Wash your hands. We can do this.

Getting it done with a little extra glitter, glue and construction paper

Before it was a headline, Lions & Tigers worked anywhere and everywhere, from dining tables, coffee shops, co-working spaces, home and client offices. I’m grateful that our mission to build a flexible model of work put us a few steps ahead on a number of fronts. We’ve worked intentionally to cultivate a work environment where “your working hours may not be my working hours,” which made this month’s transition to required WFH a bit less earth-shattering for our team. It gave us the space to focus on supporting our communities and clients, to keep moving as the world seemed to grind to a halt. We are so lucky and we recognize it.

That’s not to say this has been all unicorns and rainbows for our team. 77% of our Lions & Tigers team are parents and our preschool and school-aged kids are now along for the remote ride, except they didn’t come home with a calendar full of meetings and deadlines like we all did – we’re creating those for them too.

Our crew is getting it done, dare I say they’re crushing it, with a little extra glitter, glue and construction paper. They’re showing up for one another and our clients, taking it all in stride.

A mid-video conference visit from a 4 year-old with stickers on her face isn’t the worst thing in the world. It’s levity and we embrace it — we always do.

Remote work is our jam. Flexibility is our practice. But, let’s be clear, this is not your standard remote work. What we’re trying to pull off here is a special kind of magic.

This is superhero-level execution

We’ve been building our flexible model intentionally for quite a while now. Through trial and error, dropped calls and wasted Slack channels, a distributed team didn’t happen for us overnight and yet it did for so many of you.

For organizations, schools and families, this is a monumental shift. What we all just did — flexing to work, teach and learn remotely, overnight, is superhero-level execution. It’s three jobs packed into one day. It’s parents, kids, and a Teams account co-existing.

We kick off each day with hands on hips, head held high, ready to take on the world. Some days we dominate: we re-learn algebra, rock all of our conference calls and get every dish in our over-flowing sink washed. Other days, our kids eat cookies for lunch, we hide in the laundry room to write a brief, find ourselves in an accidental Twitter spiral and, finally, fall into bed exhausted. It will be OK. OK is great right now.

We see the capes flying behind our clients, friends and families these past few weeks. Good job, you. Keep an eye on the road ahead.

It’s going to get harder, but we can do this. We always do.

I’m here to help. Let me know if you need anything.