Leadership: What's the best response to COVID?

It would be easy amid the horror stories of redundancies and business collapses in the aftermath of the COVID-19 lockdown to think the end of the New Zealand economy is nigh. Debbie Dawson has a different perspective and shares how we all have a role to play.

The media hyperbole relentlessly describes what has happened with COVID-19 as ‘unprecedented’ and ‘extraordinary’ and yet, when we stand back and take a wider look at what has been before, we see this isn’t really true. It feels true because every country in the world looks to have been affected in one way or another, and we are continually receiving ‘news’ instalments about this. Yet there have always been catastrophic things happening. What we make this significant event mean for our workplaces and our future is entirely up to us.

Leadership perspective

One of the principles I share with my senior professional coaching clients is that the world is 50/50. This means that, at any one time, 50 per cent of what is happening is great and 50 per cent of what is happening is not so great. I have come to think of this as a natural law of the universe – just like night and day. Modern psychology tends to suggest we should aim for 100 per cent happiness all the time, but if we didn’t experience the adversity that comes along we wouldn’t recognise the good stuff when it happens. And if everything that was happening fell into the happiness category, it would quickly become bland. In other words, many of us know that to recognise joy we need to know what it is to suffer.

It is widely agreed in leadership circles that growth comes from the challenge of change. Not much growth will be gained from doing what we have always done and what we have got comfortable and capable doing. The personal and leadership growth tends to happen when we are in places of discomfort and awkwardness doing unfamiliar things. It may be hard to accept, but this global pandemic is part of the natural ebb and flow of life and the natural order of things. And like everything, it will involve sadness and silver linings. I live in Christchurch, and I saw that happen here after the earthquakes. For example, many of our beautiful buildings fell down, but others with considerably less charm also went, and this was a blessing.

Sex, drugs and rock ‘n’ roll

When my older sisters were growing up, I remember my parents agonising over the proverbial ‘sex, drugs and rock and roll’ that seemed to be the big disruptors in our lives. The modern version for those of us who are parents is now more likely to involve the internet, alcohol, online pornography, bullying and loneliness, which I believe are variations of the same theme. If we were to do the same with global events, we would see we have had these issues before.

My parents were looking for their first jobs in the depression of the 1930s and then encountered a world war. My mother’s brother died of diphtheria when he was seven and later, in the 1980s, there was AIDS, and now we have COVID-19. I am sure that, at the time, these crises all rated at least as high as the current pandemic.

Recently, my husband and I watched the television mini-series on Chernobyl, dramatising the most significant nuclear incident of our times with terrifying human and environmental consequences. We both felt shocked to realise ‘this wasn’t all that long ago’ because it was around the time our eldest children were born.

What changes and what stays the same?

A lot has been written about how the world has already changed as a result of COVID-19, and how the workplace has changed, but I wonder if it really has. I suspect it will be a bit like the Christchurch earthquakes where we all learnt to operate differently, but then over time, we went back to how we were working and essentially not a lot changed. At that time, I remember many employees working from home at their breakfast bars and kitchen tables, but, eventually most people ended up back in the office. So the vital leadership question for us is not so much whether our workplaces will be different post COVID-19 but if we want them to be, and, if so, how do we want them to be different?

The biological force of homeostasis is very strong. This is the reason why many people struggle to keep weight off after a diet. If the food supply is reduced, there is initial weight loss but, as people know, the body responds by limiting the energy demands of all its functions by a little bit to maintain the original order of things and the result is that the weight loss stalls. We see this in nature. Just look at places where there are hurricanes and tsunamis where nothing is done and how the vegetation eventually just grows back over the rubble. This is the same for organisations and workplace cultures, unless we consciously decide to do things differently.

During the disruption when peoples’ consciousness is high, lots of discussions are held about the benefits of a simpler life without so much activity and travelling and how this will change the way we do things forever, but will it really? I am personally hopeful that fewer people will make unnecessary plane trips between cities to attend ineffective meetings, and many will. But I anticipate that, unless it is consciously managed, it will be like the car traffic and creep back up to the original levels.

Language and commentary

As leaders, we also need to be conscious of the story we are telling. During the time of the Christchurch earthquakes I became utterly disenchanted by the constant use of the adjective ‘devastating’, and even 10 years later it is rare to hear any reference to this event without the use of this descriptor. This, as with the mosque killings, has come to define us as victims when we are anything but.

Some sort of renewal always comes out of adversity, although that is not to say we should not acknowledge the sadness and anguish that significant world events generate. During world wars, it was the senseless killing of lots of innocent young men and the destruction of natural landscapes around the world that was so horrifying.

Unfortunately, it is the media’s job to present it all in the worst possible light because that is what keeps us checking out those web pages and those COVID case logs. Journalists and news companies know our reptilian brain is wired to vigilantly scan our environment for danger. Bad news excites our nervous system, and our brains are tweaked by stories of mishaps and disasters. We are biologically wired to take notice as though our lives depend on it, and it is addictive. It is no wonder we develop habits such as listening for the daily 1pm update from the highest health official in the country who will present our scorecard for the day. We delude ourselves into thinking that this continuous checking in with the league tables will somehow keep us safe.

Technological nudges

It is possible that COVID will become synonymous with the next significant technological disruption. Imagine how different life in lockdown would have been without technology. Technology enabled some of us to keep working and to keep in touch with family and friends. All those people who, before lockdown, could not manage the basics of a smartphone suddenly became Zoomers and Skypers. What we saw is that businesses that were on to it took advantage of this and either started or increased their online presence. My local fruit and vege shop, whose owners operated out of a tent for 2.5 years over the earthquake period, were forced to close because of government policy but developed an online service alongside the butchery next door to resume trading and stay in business. In other words, they created a new service and a new way to do business out of this adversity.

So, as leaders, how do we keep our workplaces focused on a better future rather than on what we have lost? It takes a lot of conscious thought and effort – this is the leadership task of our time.

Worst and best case scenarios

One of the principles of the ‘50/50 world’ is to make sure we are listening to media channels consciously. For instance, if you are living in America and you listen to Fox News then you really also need to listen to CNN. As leaders, we need to cultivate this deliberate perspective consciously. If we leave our brains to our own devices they will look for further evidence for their current thoughts, which is that there is no hope and no way to recover from this.

Debbie Dawson, CFHRINZ, is an award-winning HR specialist who works with people and organisations to implement practical strategies for sustainable workplace wellbeing. She is a coach, facilitator, presenter and writer based in Christchurch. Debbie is a facilitator on HRNZ's PD programme, running some of the HR 101 PD courses and delivering webinars.