How to Reject Returning to Normal
Tune in to a news channel at any time of day and you will likely hear an expert hypothesizing when we can return to normal post COVID-19. It is a normal and understandable reaction to the pandemic. Our lives have been turned upside down. The simple act of going to the grocery store involves a risk-reward calculation. Is my list long enough to warrant a trip? Do I have a mask? Can I maintain enough distance between myself and other shoppers? Life is (and was) complex enough without putting a grocery store trip into the life and death decision category. I dream of the day that I can go to my local store and later that day visit my 82-year-old dad and not be concerned I am exposing him to a dangerous virus. That is a normal I want back.
Yet, is there some normal that I (and we) don’t want back? I work with the leaders and members of non-profit membership organizations and higher education institutions. The pandemic has affectly deeply and profoundly both of those industries. There is no normal anymore. In a very short period of time, the way they do business has ceased to exist (at least for now) and may not come back for quite some time. They desperately want their normal back. However, the best leaders of these organizations aren’t wishing for a return to normal; they are creating their new normal.
The best leaders are using this time to challenge their organizations to imagine a new future. For a membership organization, member engagement is key. How can an organization engage with its members in this new reality? A better and broader question - how can we best engage with our members? What do we want to create? What creative approaches can we imagine?
We need to guard against proposing solutions before we frame our desired outcomes. My favorite example comes from my days working with residential college students. It is a simple example, but still works. My student leader came to me and said, “I want to have an ice cream social for my residents.” My question back to her was, “What do you want to accomplish?” My student wanted to help her new residents get to know each other, reduce their fears and help them cope with homesickness. We brainstormed all of the approaches she could take to accomplish these outcomes. The ice cream social survived, but it was a part of a larger effort invoving the entire team of resident advisors.
As a leader, this is the best time to ask your colleagues and stakeholders, what do we want to accomplish? What is the difference we want to make? What can we do now to start creating this new normal? Action is the antidote to fear. We are all fearful now. Our fear response is to want things to go back to the way they were. Even if things weren’t great, we understood our reality and there is comfort in that. I challenge you (as I challenge myself) to guard against the very understandable desire to want things to go back to normal. Yes, you will want some things to go back to the way they were (e.g. your uneventful grocery store trips). But, what do you want to change? What have you been putting off that now you can try? Take care and good luck!