How Can We Better Survive the Coronavirus Crisis?
It’s not clear yet how wide and deep the economic crisis the world is heading towards following the coronavirus outbreak, but one thing we can say with certainty, if no major positive development will happen in the coming days — a working vaccine for example — we are at the doorstep of an economic crisis of scale the world has never seen since the great depression, 90 years ago (before 99.4 of American were even born), a crisis which changed the world. In the United Stated it lead to Roosevelt’s New Deal, transforming the society of the leading economic power in the world while on the other side of the Atlantic, the economic crisis changed the politics of the Old Continent, sowing the seeds for the 2nd world war, the most devastating event in history. It’s only from the ruins of that war that the world recovered from the economic depression, towards what seems like the best 75 years the human race has ever experienced.
But, as the famous cliché’ go, every crisis is an opportunity. Here are three opportunities such a crisis opens for us — to the Israeli economy as a whole, for us as managers and for each of us personally.
On the macro level, a crisis such as the one we’re currently experiencing can be what natural scientists call an extinction-level event. Such an event can allow us to make an evolutionary leap forward, advancing the economy in a short few years to where otherwise would have taken decades to achieve. Marker leaders should take this opportunity and allow industries and sectors who are naturally declining to pass on and instead encourage the development of advanced industries (technological and otherwise) and employment models fit for where we want to see the Israeli market in 2050. An example to such change is a wide adoption of remote work models (WFH — Work From Home) which will allow for better integration of the ultra-orthodox community into the work-force while maintaining the aspects of life that community finds important (e.g. gender separation, kosher restrictions, etc.).
Naturally, such employment evolution will leave a long trail of people who won’t find their place in the new economic order and we, as a society, are obligated to address their needs. This must include a comprehensive professional training system but we should not write off extreme measures such as allowing early retirement while providing state sponsored “bridge pensions” to older people with only few years left till retirement, similar to what is provided to military retirees.
As managers, we must embrace this crisis as a catalyst for change in the way we manage complex systems. We must adopt innovative technologies and flexible employment models and team management. The inevitable climate change crisis on the global scale and the predictions of population growth and traffic density on our local market in Israel will force us, sooner or later, to review and update some of the basic paradigms we base our life, society and economy upon. This can be an opportunity for us to start building the foundations for these changes, mainly on the human resources level.
On a personal level, a crisis of this magnitude forces us to reexamine some basic assumptions relating to how we manage our personal career. This of us who won’t find a way to become quixible (a combination of quick and flexible) and creative will not fit in this VUCA world of ours and will soon find themselves chasing a train exceedingly speeding away.
It is difficult now and we still don’t know a great deal more than we do know. It will probably take some time until we realize the full extent of the coronavirus on the world’s economy and the society and political structures, but the sooner we identify the entirety of opportunities opened to us and the sooner we act upon them, the better off we’ll be, both personally as a human society in general.
