Back from the Break: What Did the Silence Teach You?

Last week I spoke about the Holiday Stress test and preparing for a holiday with inbox silence. I want you to read this follow up newsletter when you are just back from a holiday.

The Sound of Systems Without You

If you took the Holiday Stress Test, you would have set your out-of-office, deactivated slack and chat notifications and stepped back. Now you are back, what have you found?

• How many missed emails and how critical were they? Were they addressed by your team in your absence?
• What was the client handover experience? Clean or messy? No risk or a damaging experience? 
• How did your team cope? Calm or chaos? Who stepped up and who crumbled without you to cover?
• Did your systems operate well without you or have things simply gone on pause and you now have a backlog to clear?

Whether the silence felt peaceful or prickly, it will be telling you something.  Silence reveals what the noise was hiding.

Reflection

The real power of this enforced stepping back isn’t just that you rested. The fact that you are refreshed and rebooted is very important.  But, you now also have the added insight into what has become clear while you weren’t running at 100 miles per hour solving, fixing, or deciding.

So, what did you really learn from your absence that you simply couldn’t hear in the busyness of the business?

Some examples: it might be one, or a combination, of these:

• My team hesitated too long → delegation isn’t deep enough
• Clients emailed too often → boundaries need reshaping
• I didn’t miss X at all → legacy offerings need pruning
• I felt anxious every day off → I’ve built dependence, not independence

Go back to what I spoke about last week with regards to what silence could be telling you.  There are 3 questions you can now ask to surface the truth.

1. What didn’t break while I was gone? That’s where you’ve built trust and structure.
2. What made me uncomfortable — and why? That’s the work calling for clarity, not more effort.
3. What am I pretending is fine, but really isn’t? That’s where friction is becoming a risk.

Apply the Learnings

So let’s apply what has surfaced in your review:

• “My team waited too long” You should now focus on defining decision rights more clearly: who owns what, where are the boundaries and escalation points, what accountability and responsibility also passes?
• “Clients expected too much” Focus now on re-establishing scope boundaries, regular reviews and better visibility from the client side and improving the rhythm of communication.
• “Too many balls dropped” Spend time on reviewing and tightening your SOPs and handover processes, and investing in training and familiarisation with the team below you, and below them.
• “I didn’t miss some clients/offers” Take stock of what is challenging you and what you actually want your business to do and be known for. Consider a prune in your pipeline and your product suite based on what comes out of the review.
• “I missed everything” This is a sure sign you’re way too embedded and your main priority now is to take time to design some time out.

These are not faults with your business per se. They comprise system feedback. Your review will also teach you what is the right thing to do first.

Ask: 

• What single issue, if improved, would reduce 30% of my tension?
• What priority emerged during the silence?
• What’s one bold move I’ve delayed that now feels obvious?

Pull one lever at a time to gradually shift everything into a better shape going forward.

Summary

Reflecting on your holiday, remember that you didn’t just take time off work. You ran a live audit and gave your business a period without you. That has shown you what is ready, what is weak and what you need to rebuild, reframe and release.  So don’t race back into everything; instead reflect and step back into the right thing your business needs to grow under your leadership. The silence is still speaking so keep listening to it.