Returning to Normal and the Downside of Ignoring Your New Next

“That’s so COVID. No one wants to hear about the New Next. Everyone is ready to get back to normal.”

That comment from a client might be true, but it is still hard to hear when you own the trademark for the words New Next?.

So, let’s dig a little deeper. The thesis of this article is that what you call it doesn’t matter. What does matter—and puts your organization and individual career at risk—is thinking that the end of an immediate crisis (like the pandemic) means that everything can now go back to “normal.”

There is always a New Next … or a Next New if you prefer. It might be radically different, or it might be the next iteration of today’s success. Either way, the best organizations are always in pursuit of it.

A Closer Look at “Normal”

The desire to return to normal can be a good thing. Our brain is hard-wired to seek the certainty that feelings of normalness inspires.

One of the great things about the pandemic was hearing the phrase: “I look forward to when I can ________ again.”

The memory and desire for a return to “normal” time provides a sense of purpose, connection, and motivation.

Viktor Frankl’s description of life in World War II concentration camps is a chilling reminder of the mental and physical toll loss of hope takes on humans. The first sign is apathy, and we see that in the self-protective detachment that occurs after any crisis or trauma.

Apathy can give way to burnout and ultimately hopelessness which is a symptom of depression. Anxiety and depression are two of the most common mental health issues in the United States.

Likewise, the nostalgia for normal provides comfort for the perceived certainty of the past.

So yes. I get it. Saying and writing, “There is no more new normal. There is only a New Next” doesn’t naturally help people escape the personal and collective trauma of the pandemic.

You can even say that the message implies a message of “Suck it up, buttercup” to individuals, organizations, and communities who are struggling to regain their equilibrium. Based on the current statistics about mental health disorders in the U.S., that is a sizeable number of people who might not want to be reminded of the uncertainty, unpredictability, and complexity of our world.

Organizations Want Normal, Too

CEOs are not immune from wanting to return to normal either. Eighty-seven percent of them are now spending at least four days per week in the office. Companies such as Disney, Chipotle, Amazon, and JP Morgan now expect all workers to spend more time in face-to-face interaction.

A key reason for returning to something close to the pre-pandemic normal is the impact on the culture. Goldman Sachs CEO David Solomon told Fortune, “For Goldman Sachs to retain that cultural foundation, we have to bring people together.”

An organization’s culture is the reflection of acceptable, normal behavior. It serves to bind us together, and it provides an anchor in uncertain times.

Yes. I get it again. Asking a CEO to accept that “there is no more new normal” while they are talking to their workforce about a return to normal is a difficult contradiction to embrace.

The Downside of Side of Normal

There are three potential problems with our desire to return to normal.

1.??Normalcy bias. This is a cognitive bias that occurs during times of crisis and uncertainty. Normalcy bias is the tendency to underestimate the likelihood or impact of a negative event.

From believing that COVID was the equivalent of a bad cold to underestimating the impact of keeping children out of school. This bias was on parade everywhere during the pandemic. Normalcy bias affects organizations, too.

Jim Keyes, then CEO of Blockbuster said this during a December 2008 earnings call: “As for the competition, we’re not worried. The Blockbuster brand is so well known.”

Conventional wisdom attributes this quote to Blockbuster’s unwillingness to embrace new technology. As in many situations, some important details are missing.

Blockbuster was guilty of underestimating the negative impact of an event, but it wasn’t technology. It was, according to Keyes , the financial crisis of 2008 and the company’s inability to finance its debt.

The market crash left Blockbuster with $350 million of debt that was due in the first quarter of 2009. Keyes wasn’t worried. The company had planned to refinance the debt later. Normalcy bias set in. Blockbuster assumed that refinancing options would be there (as normal), and it ended up with banks unwilling to lend.

Likewise, movie studios changed their credit terms from 90 days to cash. The company had no choice but to declare bankruptcy.

Keyes would, in hindsight, refinance day one to be immune to a market crash.

2.??The danger of nostalgia. Dr. Brené Brown said , “Nostalgia is also a dangerous form of comparison. Think about how often we compare our lives to a memory that nostalgia has so completely edited that it never really existed.”

Our personal nostalgia tends toward positive things. We, for example, are fondly nostalgic about childhood memories.

There is also historical nostalgia . This is the tendency to remember only the things we liked about specific time while omitting its negative aspects. Applied to organizational life, it can mean remembering the camaraderie of in-person staff meetings while forgetting that those same meetings were largely ineffective because time was wasted or that the group couldn’t make a decision.

Our organizational cultures represent our habits—good and bad. Returning to normal out of a sense of nostalgia will not improve performance if you were slow to innovate, celebrated unnecessary bureaucracy, or accepted mediocrity.

3.??The peril of complacency. Normal, by definition , means conforming to a standard or routine. In the safety world, the complacency of a routine leads to accidents.

For organizations, the complacency that follows the routine of normal means that we are destined for irrelevance … or worse extinction.

All change is, at some level, a challenge of the status quo. An unhealthy loyalty to normality keeps us trapped in the past. We live there until it becomes too uncomfortable to survive, and by then it is often too late to catch up.

The history of failed companies is filled with victims of complacency. We have already discussed Blockbuster’s failed adherence to normal. Here are a few others.

• Sears should have been Amazon. Its complacency resulted in no e-commerce investments, ignoring big box retailers, and ending the catalog business.
• Yahoo should have been Google. It accounted for 56 percent of internet searches in 2000. Google was at 1 percent. Its complacency allowed Google to quickly dominate the market. In hindsight , Yahoo wishes that it had taken Google up on its offer to sell them the company for $1 million in 1998.
• Nokia might have been Apple. Noka engineers presented an internet-ready working prototype of a touch screen phone in 2004 – years before Apple introduced the iPhone. It was, according to one former manager, an expensive risk to take. No one really knew the potential of the touch screen. The company did the normal thing and killed the idea.

The New Next Advantage

Thirty-nine percent of CEOs think their company will no longer be economically viable a decade from now without major change and transformation. The number rises to 59 percent when they look beyond 10 years out.?

CEO confidence in the executive team’s ability to lead into the future has been trending down since the end of 2021. More important, next generation leaders have experienced a sharp reduction of confidence in their executive leaders. This places having a strong bench for succession at risk.

A mindset and culture that perpetually pursues an organization’s New Next attacks both problems.

A 2019 report from Kimble Applications showed that 86 percent of respondents believe their opportunities for professional growth increase if their employer is also growing. Twenty-seven percent report that they have quit a job if they felt that their employer isn’t growing quickly enough.

That’s interesting, but 2019 feels like a lifetime ago, doesn’t it?

Today’s workforce values sustainability , meeting ESG goals, and culture. They also want meaningful work and an opportunity to grow their careers. McKinsey & Company has found that employees who find meaning from their company are driven to help them become market leaders. That plays directly into the willingness to help their company transform to meet the future.

How big a deal is the connection between meaningful work and retaining top talent? Americans have identified it as the most important aspect of a job—ahead of income, job security, and the number of hours worked for the past 30 years.

Where it All Begins

We all want our organization to deliver positive results today while building for a successful tomorrow. That is what securing your New Next is all about.

If you are one of the 39 percent who worry that your organization will not be financially viable within 10 years, the time to act is now.

Despite the barriers we all know exist, the real problem is that most organizations are not adapting and transforming fast enough. ??

Unfortunately, that will not happen until your leaders change. Sometimes that might mean replacing leaders but developing them to flourish in the current reality is the better first option.

You can accomplish that by teaching your leaders to:

• View leadership as a multi-dimensional, non-linear responsibility not a list of steps or prescribed levels.
• Operate in a way that combines the need to attract and retain talent with your desire for a culture of excellence that embraces change, develops your bench, and produces results.
• Keep their team focused, engaged, and productive in the face of unending uncertainty, intense unpredictability, and expanding complexity.

The desire to return to a sense of normal is … well … normal. That is especially true when the environment feels abnormal.

It feels as if even the “changing the tires on the race car while it is driving” cliché is insufficient. You are being asked to simultaneously change the tires, replace the engine, and rebuild the body.

The natural tendency is to pull back, resist, and take comfort in some semblance of normal.

You could do that. There is a new normal, but you don’t want to be there. The uncertainty, unpredictability, and complexity aren’t going away. Meanwhile, at least one of your competitors is learning to fly supersonic jets in search of their New Next.

Randy Pennington is an award-winning author, speaker, and leading authority on corporate culture and change. His newest leadership development program teaches leaders how to successfully lead their teams in the face of uncertainty, unpredictability, and complexity. To learn more or to engage Randy for your organization, visit?www.penningtongroup.com , email?[email protected] , or call 972-980-9857 (U.S.).