A Merry Covid19 Christmas

Mrs F suddenly came into the lounge after lunch with a notepad and pen in her hand and said, “Christmas list.” Every year out comes her list from the year before showing who was bought what and those who never bothered to write back and say THANK YOU!! They will be getting shorter measures this year.

The conversation normally goes something like this:

Mrs F: “What shall we get X this year?”

Me (playing for time): “what did we get them last year?”

Mrs F: “Smellies.”

Me (still playing for time): “what did they give us?”

Mrs F: “Smellies.

Me (seeing a money saving opportunity): “Have we opened them yet?”

Mrs F: “as they were for you and as you shower so rarely these days since you retired, I doubt it. You get more like your father every day.”

Me (checking an armpit): “Could you not just rewrap them and send them back? They will never notice.”

But not this year, Christmas has had a Covid19 make over. Without recourse to me Mrs F says, “right that’s it done, 6 Amazon, 4 Argos and 4 Next vouchers, cash for the boys, cash to repay the boys for the grandkids presents, a cheque for my father, not bothering with my sister as she is not bothering with us” and so on. All done and dusted in less than 10 minutes.

I tried suggesting passing on old Debenhams vouchers but Mrs F was having none of it.

It’s not that I have been overly depressed about all these Covid19 restrictions but I have been doing a Prince Charles in the gardens some days. That said, I must confess to having been cheered up no end when I got selected in the ballot to be one of 2,000 Saints fans allowed to go to St Mary’s next Sunday. Still can’t see my grandkids but football no problem. It’s a funny old world.

I have to fill a medical questionnaire out on Friday online, wear a mask during the game and cannot get too excited by singing Saints tunes. But it’s a start in the right direction. The new norms for watching footie.

The interesting thing about ending 2019 is the things we took for granted at the beginning of the year as normal practice are no longer the norms we are now used to, and very quickly we are all adjusting in varying degrees to new norms in our lives.

I suppose in organisational management speak because of Covid19 we are adjusting either by design or by default to a whole system change approach to the way we lead our lives.

A whole system approach works when communities and stakeholders, you and me, your mates, people you work with and those you have never met and are unlikely ever to, understand the problems we are all facing and support identification and testing of solutions to overcome them. System change is a long-term endeavour, often delivered through incremental steps and collaboratively with many partners.

I was in my local Halfords the other day getting a new battery for my car and I saw a member of staff putting together a new bicycle. I said to him, “busy time of the year for bikes?” “It is,” he said “but I don’t know why we sell so many all the time, surely everyone must have one by now.”

So, if are we a nation of bike owners why am I not flattened by riders of all ages, all year round, every time I set foot outside the front door?

I suppose it must be a lifestyle thing like having a microwave oven. Everyone wants one and most have one but few make full use of their potential. Now a whole system change approach is needed here so that we can all benefit more fully from owning our own bikes and microwaves ovens.

To embrace real change all of us have to adopt an ongoing and more flexible approach to our lives and of the lives of those around us. If I have learnt anything from Covid19 it is that life has to be about us and not just me.

Working together we can deliver sustainable change and better lives for all of us.

If you asked me 10 months ago if I thought wearing a face covering every time I went shopping would be the norm I would have laughed at you. If I knew I was only going to have driven 2,000 miles in my car in six months I would have changed my insurance policy.

Going forward I wonder how many of the things (yesterday’s norms, if you like) I have parked and how many of the new norms I have adopted will either be left in the past or embraced as the new norm. I wonder as we race towards 2021 how many of the current new norms will become yesterday’s old norms making way for the new norms of 2021. Will I be able to keep up?

If we have learnt anything from Covid19 surely it is about the need for the collective us and not about the individual me. We need to understand the views and ideals of the laggards and the non-adopters but let us embrace change collectively together, cheer the innovators and become the early adopters. 

For in the words of Henry Ford: “If you always do what you’ve always done, you’ll always get what you’ve always got.”

One old norm I won’t be giving up is grandchildren at Christmas, but the way I lead my life I hope, under new norms, will make our planet a safer place for them to grow up in.

Just deal or no deal Brexit to sort out now. Such fun.

Seasonal greetings to one and all.