After the shock and internalization, adjustment to the post-crisis reality is an opportunity to thoroughly reexamine our life assumptions. If we succeed in doing so, the coronavirus will be more than just crisis and loss.
There are two ways to look at crises in our lives: as losses or opportunities. Although there are some people who like crises, such as storm chasers and wave surfers, for most of us it is difficult to look at a crisis as an opportunity. Yet, we can all look at a crisis as a sort of disrupting change, from which we can learn, and which also poses an opportunity.
The reaction to a crisis usually includes three stages: shock, internalization, and adjustment.
The shock stage
Characterized by confusion, uncertainty, loss of control, paralysis, and panic. The “System 1” operating system (survival), according to Daniel Kahneman’s model, takes over and defines the decision-making pattern. The difficulty to connect the dots leads to a sense of paralyzing helplessness and a thirst for instructions from anyone who looks like a professional authority.
The coronavirus days. The national decision-makers too are in the shock stage and are shooting in the dark, yet Steven Erlanger writes in the New York Times on April 15, 2020 that the leaders of Germany, Denmark, Italy, France, Austria, Netherlands, and even the UK, enjoyed a popularity bump in the first weeks of managing the COVID 19 crisis. In Israel as well, polls indicate a surge in Netanyahu’s popularity, and even Trump’s approval rating hasn’t declined despite criticism of his performance.
The internalization stage
Acknowledgment and grieving over the loss of the way things were, and the realization that they will not be the same again. When the public goes out into the public sphere it will be exposed to a new reality. Many who were put on unpaid leave will not be able to go back to their jobs.
The pain of millions of unemployed – as a result of the collapse of small, medium and large businesses, business owners whose businesses collapsed, CEOs who were ousted, and company owners who lost their livelihoods – will turn into frustration seeking release.
The question whether the frustration and rage will be channeled into civil disobedience and violence – or, conversely, adjustment, reconstruction and growth – depends on the level of social equity. Unlike economic equity measured in financial terms, social equity is measured by the level of trust between citizens, and between the citizens and the leadership, the level of solidarity and community spirit, and the credibility of the government (or management) and its level of public transparency.
Social equity – a bridge between shock and adjustment
In the internalization stage, the public’s support of the authority figures, which characterized the shock stage, declines. Without a clear and agreed road map, the situation might descend into chaos. On the backdrop of the Great Depression of the 1930s, U.S. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt introduced the New Deal, for the relief, recovery and reform of the country’s social-economic system. It was no accident that at the same time he launched his “fireside chats,” a nightly radio address, to maintain the public’s trust.
The depth and quality of the social equity will determine the ability to sustain the price of the crisis as well as the credit given to the leadership to lead reforms. A deficit in social equity will lead to loss of control and a deepening of the crisis. The transition from the internalization stage to successful adjustment depends on the leadership’s ability to leverage the existing social equity while striving to expand and strengthen it.
In the adjustment stage the public begins to cope with the new reality. This is the moment to shake off the sense of victimhood and take responsibility for the new reality. Unless we go through a period of mourning for the loss of a human life, job, career, profession, worldview, management philosophy or personal identity, we cannot rebuild. When the time comes, it is more important to ask how we must change ourselves to adjust to the new environment, than to try to shape the environment to the new conditions, let alone live in the illusion that we can bring things back to the way they were before.
The transition from the internalization stage to the adjustment stage involves a change of our thought operating system. In Daniel Kahneman’s terms, we must lower the volume of the intuitive, “System 1” operating system, and activate the analytical and rational “System 2.”
In the adjustment stage we must simultaneously activate two different operating systems – “red team” and “blue team.” The purpose of the red team is to deal with crises in real time, try to find instant solutions to the difficulties, and address strategic questions (such as the risk management strategy and life in the shadow of the epidemic over time).
The blue team’s purpose is to see the crisis as an opportunity to shape a vision for the future. The blue team (which relies on Kahneman’s “System 2”) examines the situation in an attempt to extract a range of possibilities to redesign the purpose, the vision, the organization structure and the basic thinking.
First steps of thorough examination
The first step in shaping the future vision is an analysis of the external conditions, such as the communication and technology revolution, the impact of globalization on the virus’s progress, or the development of tools to deal with the crisis’s impact. This is the time to analyze the root causes that characterized the crisis response, on the personal, process and structural levels.
The second stage is to articulate the lessons learned from the circumstances and processes that led to the disruption of life by the pandemic. The COVID 19 crisis can and should serve humankind as a wake-up call for a change of consciousness and reshaping of our lifestyles to prevent much more pernicious dangers such as the climate crisis, or at least help us prepare to confront them.
Finally, back to basics. Just like the Japanese learned how to adjust their lifestyle, culture, and especially their social equity to recurring incidences of earthquakes and typhoons, so must all of humanity prepare for the advent of crises not as rare events but at a high frequency, as we learn from Prof. Ezekiel Emanuel, the architect of President Obama’s healthcare reform.
And here is one of the lessons I suggest we learn: the human race must depart from its megalomaniac dream of controlling nature and adopt a sustainable lifestyle that respects it. The COVID-19 crisis will teach us, if we only listen, that it too provides an opportunity. Just like an earthquake may destroy man-made buildings but also turn the soil, reveal new water sources, and help tree roots deepen their grip on the earth – if they survive the flood.
Boaz Tamir, ILE.
I agree on the move that after the move from healthcare to economics, now it’s time to think about the move that economics will make to social.