Turns out all we were waiting for was permission!

Today everyone is able to think the unthinkable. Governments around the world have just rewritten all the economic rules; manufacturing organizations are moving, in very short order, from their usual product lines to building ventilators; towns and cities around the world are deserted ... and (my own experience when out running) everyone I pass (at a safe social distance) says hello, waves or otherwise engages with me.

The speed of change and the speed at which most of us have adapted our lives is not really extraordinary - our built in survival traits encourage us to normalize the extraordinary very quickly indeed so that we are not then paralyzed by inaction.

Of course we already knew this. Examples such as the Storm Desmond Recovery operation, following the hurricane in Cumbria in 2015, illustrate very powerfully how when the normal rules are suspended and with the help of a universally understood and mutually shared objective, we can encourage amazing things with extraordinary speed.

We often castigate our employees for lack of imagination, no appetite for innovation, failure to change and adapt, and an inability to deal with uncertainty.

Turns out that actually individuals and groups are incredibly capable of all of these things. It's the leaden, rules-based nature of terminally risk-averse organizations, that constrain and stifle the very collaboration, creativity and innovation they all cry out for.

So, once the immediate threat of the Covid-19 pandemic is ended and your organization is looking for a short-cut to a fast recovery, look to your employees. Remember, all you need do is give them permission. They can take care of the rest.