RESET-20: What comes after COVID-19

By Daniel Aronson

Remember when we had things planned out, budgeted for, and underway? That feels like forever ago, but it’s just been a few months.

Then again, that is forever ago in COVID time.

It is a new challenge to do our jobs in the COVID era, with one eye on the never-ending stream of news about the swath it’s cutting through our communities, our countries, and our world. But (if we’re lucky) our jobs – and the other global needs we’re working on – haven’t gone away.

How do we do our jobs today, after COVID-19 has upended everything?

• Individual: “How do I remain professional and productive in my home office?”
• Organizational: “Company revenues are down, and so is my department’s budget”
• Societal: “What if there’s a second wave of infections and the country isn’t even close to normal before the New Year?”

How do we adapt to all of this – not only today, but this quarter, this year, and beyond? And what tools and actions can help us?

In response to those questions, we’ve launched RESET-20 (RESET-20 is what comes after COVID-19). Here’s more about why we need a reset, followed by three insights you can use today. If you like what you see, you can also join us for a free webinar on RESET-20.

Why do we need a RESET?

First, the needs of different time horizons have diverged much more radically than normal. We need to plan differently for each of four time frames: 

• Today
• This quarter
• This year
• 2021+

It’s hard, for example, to get people to continue working on your three-year strategy when what they really need to hear about is how you’re going to address today’s crisis, and get back on a solid footing this quarter. We also need new tools and activities that fit these different time horizons.

Topics for today and this quarter:

• Six left feet: Why our current remote habits don’t work, and what to do instead
• Not even remotely: How remote workspaces and habits are set up poorly for productivity, and what to do about it 
• Close from afar: How to practice physical distancing but avoid social distancing 
• Real connections, virtually: How to recreate face-to-face when we can’t move from place to place

Examples for this year and beyond:

• 4 Sight: Scenario planning along multiple dimensions (health, economy, government action, social action)
• Tri-orities: How to adjust priorities and actions while dealing with COVID-19 needs, budget pressure, and all the same issues as before

Insights you can use now

Here are some of the lessons we learned in the course of creating RESET-20 that you can use right now, today. (For more, join us for the free webinar.)

1. (This) time is different:

The four time frames that form the basis of the 4 Sight process – today, the current quarter, the rest of 2020, the new year and beyond – each have their own demands.

• Don’t start a conversation or planning session without separating these time frames. At a minimum, separately list the external context, specific needs, and internal situation for each (and we have free tools to help you with this)
• Do compare and integrate across time horizons, but only after you’ve addressed each individually first. Look for resource needs, dependencies, and common decision-making points across actions (we have templates to help with this too)

2. (Broken) clock speeds:

Just as time frames differ, there are different natural clock speeds for different matters based on the physics of the issue:

• Do prioritize speed for near-term actions, building in ways you can adjust later. COVID’s clock speed – “COVID time” – is lightning fast. Think how quickly total infections grow – doubling in days[1] if adequate action isn’t taken. You need to adjust your speed to match
• Don’t let today’s numbers cause you to take your eye off the full cycle of events. COVID cases will go from exponential growth to decline – then quite possibly additional wave(s) of infection. You need to have a plan for each phase of the lifecycle before you get there
• Do step back from COVID and look at the clock speed of other things we care about, such as climate and inequality. They have a very different clock speed – for example, it takes a lot longer to double the percentage of women in top management than the 1-2 weeks[2] it took to double global deaths through April 3rd. For these issues, we need to keep building for the long term – even though we can’t ignore the short-term

3. Be close from afar:

As necessary as physical distancing measures are right now, we need to take action to protect against 3 side effects of social distance:

a) Do acknowledge openly that distance conflicts with our biology and what makes us human. Humans evolved as social creatures, and people need to hear that we understand that. Technology can evolve quickly, and so can our actions, but our biological evolution operates on a different timescale[3]

b) Don’t let loneliness get worse as people work from home. Loneliness affects our health, with physical effects comparable to smoking.[4] Unfortunately, remote workers are even more susceptible, which means we need new tools and new habits

Tools such as Nowbridge create virtual windowpanes, letting you glance at your coworkers, while ones like Marco Polo operate as on-demand video walkie-talkies. New habits also matter; a quick morning check-in (which we do at my company), virtual celebrations, and coffee / happy hours (I participate in one 3-4 times a week) all make a difference. In fact, one colleague has never been more socially connected despite working remotely from halfway around the world.

c) Do keep front-and-center the reality that we are in this together. There are two distinct narratives competing to make sense of this time and what it means:

• One is destructive and false: that it’s everyone for themselves. This is the story behind things like getting into fights over toilet paper or buying out a whole store’s supply of paper products
• The other – the one that’s true and constructive – is that “we’re in this together, but six feet apart”[6]

When we plan, and when we communicate, we need to make sure we begin by thinking about the public, then the organization. One company was in the process of rescheduling their customer event to the fall – since they are doing a great job of keeping physically distant and staying healthy. But a broader view showed that much of the US isn’t doing so well at that, hence it was very unlikely that travel restrictions would be lifted in time for a sufficient number of customers to attend.

All the best in this difficult time – and stay safe!

For more insights, email us at [email protected] or join us for a free webinar.

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“This is impressive.… I can already see this can be super helpful”

–    B. B., Frederick, Maryland, USA

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“A very informative session”

–    Dr. E. M., Cleveland, Ohio, USA

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Daniel Aronson is the founder of Valutus, a startup consultancy focused on sustainability measurement, valuation, strategy, and tools. He is the author of the forthcoming book, The Value of Values.

References

[1] Estimates of infection doubling time vary, but most are between 2.5-6 days

[2] Our World in Data, 2020

[3] A point made by Dr. Miguel Fernandes, among others

[4] PLOS, 2010

[5] Harvard Business Review, 2015

[6] Tasneem Nashrulla, BuzzFeed