Change, but not as we know it

There is a low level of anxiety everywhere, a general malaise. We are worried about our jobs, the economy, about family, friends and colleagues, about the world after Covid, about the world before Covid. We are fearful of others we pass in the street. And we are grateful to people we normally don’t notice. Most of us are kinder, softer, more balanced in our perspective. We have started to appreciate simple things not because we wanted to but because we had to.

The reason? Change. And whatever we like to think, we human beings struggle with it. It’s not weakness or deficiency. It’s innate. We are made this way. We are simple, primitive beings who seek to minimise threat and maximise reward. Change is a threat. It’s the equivalent of coming face to face with a tiger.

This change is very different for two reasons. Firstly, we are all going through it at the same time. Change on a massive, inescapable scale like this is as big as it gets. Even war doesn’t compare because it rarely, if ever, touches every country and every person on the planet at once.

But more than that, this change is atypical for another reason, a more significant one. Coronavirus has forced all of us into simultaneous change without a destination.  We are literally in limbo. That’s what makes this so uncomfortable. Yes, some of our freedoms are restricted, we have lost the illusion of control and there is little certainty just now, but the main problem is that we don’t know where we are heading.

Change initiatives tend to start from one pre-defined place and end in another. There is a goal, a vision of the future that we are drawn towards despite knowing that there might be discomfort or pain along the way. The change that we are currently going through with this pandemic started with no such vision. Only change of this scale and this nature, unplanned, “burning platform” change can leave us feeling so lost and directionless. That is why this feels so difficult.  

So, I believe that now is the time to start dreaming, to start creating that vision that we need, to develop once again a sense of purpose and a reason to move forward. We need hope and direction to come out of this. So, I invite you all to start the dreaming, to evaluate the old and create the new, to be bold and brave about the way you design your lives, your businesses, our world.