Architecting the post Pandemic World

The gloomy headlines. The Deaths. The haltering economies. The job losses. The endless suffering. Despite the current gloom, we will recover. The shape of the recovery - V, U, W is debatable and largely beyond human hands - at the mercy of the way the virus behaves as well as the speed at which the vaccine is developed. The fluctuations along the path will dependent on the complex interaction of the virus path and the social, political and individual response.

"Destruction leads to a very rough road but it also breeds creation." Anthony Kedis, Red Hot Chili Peppers

But what the new normal looks post recovery is definitely something what we can influence and plan for. And not just plan for, but actively work towards. A better world!

“The best way to predict the future is to to create it.” Peter Drucker (arguably)

My top three hopes for the new normal revolve around Food, the Environment and the new workforce.

Sustainable & Safe Food: I hope this is the end of Wildlife trade and Bush meat, the end of Industrial Meat production, the death of mindless over-fishing, a stop to the culling of sharks for shark fin and outlawing of wildlife based medicine. I hope there is a lesson learnt by the people driving the demand. I hope the authorities clamp down with a force as brutal that is being used to stop the spread of the virus. I also hope that this drives further the plant based food moment and helps address the environmental and ethical ills of industrialised meat production. I wish for all food in the markets and all restaurants to have a food sustainability rating just like electronic equipment.

And what choices will you make? How will you influence your governments on these topics? What F&B arrangement will you chose for your next office event? Will you still merrily eat at restaurants serving shark fin soup or Exotic meat?

A healthier Environment: Even my 10 year old son gets it that the virus has been good for the Earth, while being catastrophic to Humans. The sea has never looked clearer in the Singapore Straits for decades. And the night skies are faintly visible even from the light polluted skies of Singapore. Endless memes aside, the negative impact of human activity has never been so starkly visible. I hope this leaves an indelible mark on all of us and the future decision makers.

She can take it back. She will take it back someday. Dave Gilmour, Pink Floyd

While I think the need to switch back the economic engines post pandemic will likely over-come any environmental concerns at the policy and governmental level. The need for growth in our capital systems as well as the near term thinking of our political and religious leaders will pull towards bringing the world to the old equilibrium. But I hope that you and me can take our environmental responsibilities a lot more seriously (including your author who is mentally struggling with his car choice). An audit of your lifestyles around the basic principles of refuse, reuse and recycle would be a good start. For most of us city dwellers, the amount of wastage in our daily lives has been unsustainable for a long time. It is time that we reverse this trend and hold each other and businesses we deal with accountable on this measure.

Again to counter the worldwide governmental inaction towards enforcing environmental laws, we need to seek for more transparency on the environmental track record of products and services we consume. Similar to food, we need to push for clear environment ratings

Labour, the Workforce and the WorkPlace: A Bloomberg article described the post pandemic Wuhan as a dystopia. I don't understand why - other than the general western press diarrhoea every time someone else is handling matters better than the west. To me it seems that even for human intensive manual jobs, they are able to push for productivity while reducing crowding. The fear and some hardships among the people are obvious and hopefully abate soon. But the factories are operating in less crowded locations. I hope the same applies as businesses come back online from Bangladesh to Vietnam.

For most of us knowledge and service economy workers, it is clear in the post-Pandemic era that the physical co-location was a wasteful luxury. Once you get over the shock, most of the service work can merrily continue remotely. Offices should be only for meetings that require extensive negotiations and joint brain storming and for coming together for social purposes. The wasteful travel leading to over-crowding of the public transports and the road infrastructure needs to be eliminated. Weekly business travel across cities, day trips between cities - I hope they become rarities! Let travel be for leisure only!

Moving to this work model will also spell the death knell of antiquated management models requiring "face" and "putting in time". Performance management could possibly get more robust with the focus on outcomes. 

The measures I speak above are just some top-of-mind thoughts for me. Each topic has deep implications and plenty of research exists around them. However, the intent of this article is only to leave you with one thought - please do not go back to business as usual. Make some choices that help the world heal and allow the human race to enjoy the beauty of this world. 

#sustainability #postCovid19 #environment #WFH #telecommuting #remotework #foodsafety