Use this time to search for meaning
As the lockdown countdown ticks on, it’s tempting to focus on crossing off the days until we can emerge into something more like normal life. But that would be a mistake, and a missed opportunity.
For one thing, the end of the lockdown won’t be the end of our struggle with coronavirus. The pandemic has punched a gaping hole in our economy, and we can’t expect everything financial to return to normal when the clock turns to 11.59pm on Wednesday.
For another, this experience has something to teach us if we will take the time to learn the lesson.
It’s a lesson that’s particularly relevant for leaders, who are responsible for casting a vision and inspiring their teams in these challenging times, whether they’re CEOs trying to rebuild their firms and pivot in a new direction, leaders of non-profits who are serving a community facing new struggles, or politicians seeking to give us hope and direction in the face of dire economic scenarios.
It’s a lesson that can also help parents, teachers, and neighbours – all of us, in fact. It’s a lesson about meaning and purpose.
The official advice for coping with these challenges is to ‘‘be kind’’ – good advice as far as it goes, but that’s not far enough given the scale of the social and financial adversity that is, like a cresting wave, ready to break upon us.
For inspiration, we can turn to the example of someone who endured much greater adversity than us – Viktor Frankl.
Frankl was an Austrian, a psychiatrist, and also prisoner number 119,104 in four Nazi concentration camps. After his wartime experiences he wrote the most influential Man’s Search for Meaning .In it, he observes that, ‘‘the prisoner who had lost faith in the future . . . was doomed’’.
He acknowledges the truth expressed by the philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche, who famously said, ‘‘He who has a why to live for can bear with almost any how.’’
In other words, to endure adversity, we must find meaning in our lives and our situations, no matter how challenging they are. There are three ways we can do this: look up, look around, and look back.
Looking up means finding inspiration in a faith, philosophy or cause that is greater than yourself and that has a compelling story to tell about the meaning in the world. Frankl observed that, ‘‘The way in which a man accepts his fate and all the suffering it entails, the way in which he takes up his cross, gives him ample opportunity – even under the most difficult circumstances – to add a deeper meaning to his life.’’
Many people are already doing this – one academic reports Google searches for ‘‘prayer’’ have increased exponentially since the pandemic began – and leaders should reflect on how they can help their teams find meaning in what they do.
Looking around means looking out for others, putting their interests ahead of our self-interest. Frankl writes, ‘‘We who lived in concentration camps can remember the men who walked through the huts comforting others, giving away their last piece of bread.’’
More recently, Sir John Key advised businesses that a crisis like this one ‘‘is still an opportunity to do the right thing’’ by their employees. This is the value of solidarity, and leaders who embody this recognise we have mutual obligations of care and responsibility to each other because we inhabit the same society.
Looking back means learning the lessons of history. Telling Frankl’s story is one example of how we can do this, not because there are direct parallels between his situation and ours, but because studying history helps us to recognise that the human condition is in fact one of struggle and challenge.
Equipped with this knowledge, leaders can better calibrate their response to the pandemic. For example, they could avoid the dangers of over-reacting by employing a simplistic ‘‘exceptional times call for exceptional measures’’ logic, while also acknowledging the dangers of underreacting by learning from the experience of past pandemics, like the Spanish influenza, and their horrifying death tolls.
Leaders can also use the perspective of history to bend the arc of their responses to include long-term considerations, and not just short-term ones.
Looking up, around, and back is also preparation for looking forward. It equips leaders for their core task of developing a compelling vision of the future, and it helps all of us define who we want to be individually and as a society; for example, whether we will choose to be defined by solidarity or by our own self-interest.
The clock is ticking towards the end of the lockdown. It’s telling us it’s time to begin our own search for meaning.