The Only Way Out of the Lockdown
In the aftermath of this crisis, there will be millions of words written, quoting statistics, attempting to analyze exactly how it all came about, and what could have been done differently. Did we take the right strategy? Was it correct or incorrect? There will be tremendous debates over it, and over how much of our freedom was sacrificed.
Super Organizations
One prediction I can make is that yet another super-organization will be established. Throughout history, following a world-wide or even national disaster, such organizations have always come about. Following World War II, the United Nations was established in an effort to prevent future wars. Following 9/11, the United States Department of Homeland Security was established with the mission of providing public security in the U.S. and preventing another similar event.
If we’re really honest, such organizations are not especially helpful, because there is so much inefficiency. The larger organizations get, the less productive they become. A very pertinent question, for example, is, has the United Nations really avoided wars? The concept of giant organizations should be re-thought because the world has changed; technology has changed, and communication channels have changed.
Similarly, global supply chains will be re-thought. Countries will be examining what types of manufacturing and development should be localized, especially when it comes to medicine. Nations don’t want to have to depend on other nations for help in times of crisis.
Global Movement
At the same time, the global approach has had to be taken, because for the first time we can orchestrate help throughout the world. If we’d had the same capabilities in 1918, when the Spanish Flu epidemic occurred, it certainly would not have been as devastating as it was.
This is the first time in history that the whole world has been so affected. This very morning I was on a call with partners in several different nations: India, Australia, and two different African countries. They’re all locked in—and for us, it’s a mutual corporate experience throughout the globe! It’s something that has never happened, is beyond anything we’ve ever previously imagined.
The Community
As I discussed in my last article, we have now learned that we have to take care of people in our immediate vicinity—within our own communities. Interestingly, there was a trend in big cities a few decades back to make them more like communities with the creation of car-free zones. Cities had been growing and full to bursting, and the car-free zone trend started in Europe. These were areas in which people could walk freely, and there were outdoor cafes, restaurants, and stores, and people could interact and mingle. Today these can be found in Vienna, Barcelona, Madrid and Oslo, among many others.
The feeling of community is the feeling of connecting. We’re realized we can only connect in communities, because the bigger the “community” gets—when they turn into cities—the more impersonal they become. The individual becomes a number.
One thing we’re learning today is that every human counts. Otherwise, why would we take such care of each and every one? I think a couple of hundred years ago in such a crisis as we’re experiencing now, the attitude might have been, “The strongest survive, let the rest go.” But today our consciousness has become stronger, and we have a new spirit.
This growing community consciousness could very well lead to new community structures and communication methods.
The New Working Environment
Along with this new viewpoint, people are learning how to work from home. As people have been forced to work from home because of the quarantine, they’ve realized, “Hey, this isn’t so bad!” I can only speak for America, but previously we had thousands and thousands of people having to sit in cars for hours every day. They were frustrated and stressed. It was a total waste of time—not good for the planet, not good for them, not good for the family, not good for the business, and not good for anyone.
This new working environment is made possible by technology. Interestingly, this technology has been there for many years, but companies have been lax in implementing it, for whatever reason. Now they’re being forced to make it happen.
The question is, are we willing to engage in this learning curve, and embrace what it means? At the end of the quarantine, we don’t have to remain at the total extreme and continue working at home. We can create hybrid models, where some work at home and some come into an office. This will greatly cut down on the number of people daily flocking into inner cities.
No Real Change
But I predict there won’t be a massive change. Once we have the “all clear” and there is a vaccine and perhaps even a cure for the coronavirus, people will mostly revert right back to their old ways. How do I know that? Look back to the 1980s, when the AIDS epidemic occurred, and the LGBT community was locked in fear. Today, that community is as active as ever, since there is a treatment for HIV.
We will go back to travel, too—but there will be changes. After 9/11 we had several major changes in air travel that have remained with us since. One of them is that the cockpit door, once a plane has taken off, remains closed no matter what. This is so drastically different from my first trip to the U.S. in the 1980s—because I was friends with the head stewardess in First Class, I was allowed to sit in the cockpit behind the captain as we landed at LAX. I saw spread out before me in every direction the lights of Los Angeles—that was my welcome to the United States! That is, of course, impossible today.
We also have tightened security at airports and must go through being scanned and sometimes searched before we reach our gate. I predict there will be added to this system ways to scan for health and disease detection. Just as the previous changes didn’t dampen our enthusiasm for travel, I don’t expect added measures will, either.
Responsive to Change
Finally, we’ve learned once again that we must be responsive to change. We can turn back to lessons learned from Charles Darwin: it’s not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent. It is the individual or group who is most responsive and adaptable to change. That’s what we need today, and this is true for you as an individual, as a member of a family, as part of a company and as a nation.
If we take a good look, the most adaptive of the workforce has always been salespeople. Why? Because sales must constantly change as the business landscape changes. In the end, I truly believe that salespeople should be as highly valued as we’re currently valuing healthcare workers. Health professionals are doing an incredible and valuable job—but when we begin returning to normal, it will be salespeople who lead the way.
In a nutshell: Welcome to the world of constant instant dynamic change, to which we must all adapt on a daily basis.
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