Tag: pandemic

It might come back, you know?

To understand what is happening today, we should devote at least 80% of our time studying history and no more than 20% on current news.

This is true of any topic. War, entertainment, natural disasters, exploration, politics, sports, etc.

And, of course, it is true of the current pandemic. At this point, we won’t learn much from current news. The precautionary measures won’t change. Some numbers will go up, some will go down. A new celebrity will become infected. Not terribly helpful.

Instead, study the last pandemic of 1918 and you’ll learn that after it was “over”, it came back.

Twice.

So today’s leaders need to have a plan for what they’ll do if the COVID-19 dies down mid-summer, only to return at the end of the year. And then again in 2021 or 2022.

How will governments assist those in need? How will employers support their employees, customers, suppliers and local communities? How will health facilities serve the sick?

Leave Facebook aside. Learn from history. Take action.

Cheap t-shirts, pigs, and ethical decisions

Those who lived through the Great Depression spent the rest of their lives saving every penny they could, and placing them only in the safest of investments.

This severe worldwide economic depression of the 1930s changed how an entire generation (or two) lived on a day-to-day basis. It also changed how everyone prepared for the future.

The current pandemic is likely to have the same effect. Just take two bits of news I read today:

A crisis exposes vulnerabilities in a system. In most cases, these vulnerabilities were not invisible before the crisis. They were simply deemed unlikely, thus ignored.

The garment worker, the factory owner, and the pig farmer will have this crisis on their mind for the rest of their lives. It will change how they work, how they assess risk, and how they live, just like the Great Depression did.

More importantly for the very near term, business leaders and workers will make important decisions to save their businesses or, in some cases, their lives. These decisions will have significant compliance and ethical considerations. For now, and for the future.

Are they ready?

Let the pressure propel you

I often write about two topics on this blog: the fraud triangle and the science of total motivation.

The fraud triangle tells us that given enough pressure, a person will engage in fraud (or any wrongdoing, really) if they think they can get away with it and if they can rationalize their behavior. The science of total motivation (ToMo) demonstrates that pressure can hurt business performance.

The common culprit is pressure. And the question for any organization affected by the COVID-19 pandemic is: are your employees feeling additional pressure right now? If the answer is yes, then you know what to expect.

But external pressures can also propel organizations willing to improve their culture, to experiment with ways to cope with this crisis, to align their purpose with the goals of public health, and to take steps today that will make them stronger when the pandemic is over. The worse thing they can do is to hunker down.