Rethinking Your Personal, Professional, and Partnership Goals During CoVid-19’s “Lifestyle Sequestration”

Disruptive Innovation and Redefining What is Truly Important

A Video Introduction (with a Special Offer):

[CLICK HERE to Read the Entire Blog Message] 

Dear Colleagues, 

Introduction

  As I write this week’s Blog, there is no way to avoid or ignore our current sequestered state of affairs.

  As of the minute of this posting (I just looked at the TV), there are now over 775,000 worldwide Corona Virus-19 infections confirmed—with more than 37,000 deaths. In the United States, we have over 160,000 infected individuals, and over 3,000 have died. And these numbers are growing every day.

  I’m not trying to obsess over the figures. It’s just that there are some who still do not—or have been told not to—believe the figures, or even the significance of this virus. And yet, the World Health Organization received and publicized the first formal report about the virus—and its threat—from China on New Year’s Eve.

[CLICK HERE for U.S. News & World Report article]

  Now. . . with pleas (or mandates) to stay at home, to physically distance if we go shopping or engage in other essential activities, and to practice “safe sequestering,” we are all trying to wrap our emotions around this crisis. . . a crisis that is leaving:

• Many children and adolescents confused and concerned (e.g., about their safety and future);
• Many essential workers concerned about day care and the supervision of their children—whose schools have now physically closed;
• Many stay-at-home parents, spouses, and significant others (what I am calling “Partners” in my title) overwhelmed because, for example, 24/7 childcare, home-schooling, and purchasing food and other essential items in short supply have now been added to their usual responsibilities;
• Many (now) “home-at-work” parents trying to balance a new way to work—while also supporting their at-home children, and spouses or significant others;
• Many underemployed or (potentially) unemployed workers anxious about their income and “making ends meet;” and
• Many American children, adolescents, and young through elderly adults, who were already in need, and who are now in greater need. This includes students and adults with disabilities, low income and homeless families, and others who are physically, emotionally, or situationally fragile.

  In today’s Blog message, I address these needs by, hopefully, helping people (a) identify and work through their emotions; (b) analyze and consider how their thoughts and beliefs are helping or hurting; and (c) discuss, choose, and demonstrate the individual, partnership, and family interactions that “fit” their living circumstances, and that are currently most important to growing (yes, growing) through this crisis.

  This is accomplished by focusing on home and family, before work. . . on growth, instead of survival or paralysis. . . on support, instead of isolation or frustration . . . and on grace and gratitude, instead of despair.

  And this is also facilitated by connecting the theory of Disruptive Innovation to our current “lifestyle sequestration.”

  The Goal is to encourage those reading this Blog to use the “disruptive” opportunity, prompted by the COVID-19 crisis, to make one or more changes in our lives—on behalf of ourselves, our children, our partners, or others in our personal and/or professional families.

[CLICK HERE to Read the Entire Blog Message]

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Why Disruptive Innovation is Relevant to COVID-19

  In his 1997 book The Innovator’s Dilemma, Clayton M. Christensen, a business theorist and management consultant—who coincidentally passed away due to complications from cancer this past January (January 20, 2020), introduced disruptive innovation into the world of business theory.

  In short, the theory states that a Disruptive Innovation is an innovation (think personal computers, smartphones, flash drives)—usually developed by an entrepreneur or someone working outside the mainstream network of industries for a specific product—that so disrupts the existing market that it redefines, transforms, and quickly dominates that market.

  Beyond its original applications to business and economics, disruptive innovation is now used more generically to describe anything that disrupts and changes how a complex system acts, interacts, or responds to a completely unique product or set of circumstances.

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  In this latter context, I would like to suggest that the COVID-19 virus is an innovative disruption as it has changed our personal and professional lives already in innumerable ways.

  The question is:

  Will the impact of COVID-19 motivate us to change (i.e., innovate) in positive, proactive, and productive ways—individually, within our families, at our (virtual) workplaces, and across our communities?

OR

  Will we resist change—for example, because of arrogance, misinformation, selfishness, resistance, or emotional paralysis?

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  While he was a successful businessman, who taught for many years at Harvard Business School, Christensen wrote ten books. For my colleagues in education, one was called Disrupting Class (2008). It discussed the root causes of why schools struggles, and how to overcome these struggles.

  But, today, I want to call attention to a somewhat unique article written by Christensen in July-August 2010 in the Harvard Business Review, titled “How Will You Measure Your Life.”

[CLICK HERE to Link to Article]

  The remainder of the Blog describes, through quotes from Christensen’s article, five “innovations” that he might connect to the disruptive opportunities within the current COVID-19 crisis.

• Christensen Innovation #1: If You Don’t Understand the Science, You Can’t Successfully Change the Practice.
• Christensen Innovation #2: If You Don’t Know Where You’re Going, Any Road will Get You There.
• Christensen Innovation #3: Understand the Difference Between Consistency and Common Sense.
• Christensen Innovation #4: Remember the Importance of Humility.
• Christensen Innovation #5. Choose the Right Yardstick.

  These innovations were supplemented by Alborzian’s “5 Habits of Purposeful People”:

• Habit #1: Live in the present moment.
• Habit #2: Focus on one thing.
• Habit #3: Make changes today, not tomorrow.
• Habit #4: Be of service to others.
• Habit #5: Practice.

  In the end, the final question is, “What action are you prepared to take now?” Address one of the present needs discussed in this Blog. Prioritize and focus on one at a time. Start today so that you can positively impact others. And, plan and practice your steps. . . and make them a reality.

  What do you think?

[CLICK HERE to Read the Entire Blog Message]

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Virtual Study Groups Now Forming and Summary

  While I, too, am working from home, please know that I am always happy to hear from you. . . feedback, critique, questions, and needs.

  In addition, I am in the process of putting together a monthly, virtual Study Group of administrators who are interested in exploring how to put some of the ideas in this Blog into action. . . both now as their schools go virtual, and for the future when their schools reconvene in a more physical and “traditional” way.

  I am also putting together a monthly, virtual Study Group of school psychologists who want to expand their roles to include facilitating systems-level change and consultation processes.

  If you are interested in either of these groups, please contact me immediately via e-mail: [email protected] .

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  Finally, to those of you who have become “first responders” for your students, I simply want to say, “THANK YOU.”

  I am fully aware of the efforts you are making on behalf of your students, families, and community. They are not going unnoticed.

  Be safe everyone! Think about the opportunities that this challenge presents to us.