What is your current squirrel mood, & what does it have to do with work?
I saw this squirrel scale recently on another LinkedIn post (unfortunately I can’t find it again).
A couple of days ago, I shared this in the morning with my team in our chat room, not expecting any engagement, but purely in the hope of giving people a creative way to stop and think about how they were feeling.
It was great to see throughout the day, colleagues engaging in the chat room during their breaks, not only identifying what squirrel they were identifying with, but also briefly why. It gave us all an insight into what was working well for them, as well as frustrations & how busy they were.
This is something working from home, we aren’t always aware of how our colleagues are feeling throughout the day, and enabling us as a team to being more mindful of our own and our teams wellbeing.
I could be wrong, but I think using the ‘squirrel scale’, helped people to identify & express how they were feeling in a fun, non-intrusive way. There was no obligation to engage.
I know I identified with 5 & 8 simultaneously first thing in the morning. I was feeling physically tired, but my mind was full of joy for the day ahead. Later in the day, I’ll admit that squirrel 1 & 6 made an appearance several times when I had IT issues.
Another colleague identified with squirrel 3 when they looked at all the emails in their inbox.
All in all, one thing that was coming out from the group chat, was that despite moments of frustration etc, it was seen that these moments wouldn’t last.
By being mindful of our emotions, and reflecting on what were the triggers of the emotions, it enabled us to factor in strategies for dealing with road bumps.
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