The ‘new normal’ means a ‘new us’
L ATER this morning, I will be joining ManilaTimes President and Chief Executive Officer Dante “Klink” Ang 2nd to co-host our online business forum, “Business as Usual Under the Ne… NormalL” …hich you can vie… via TheManila
Times’ Facebook page. Although I am very much looking for…ard to the eventL the irony of it is still a little hard to grasp. About three months ago, our last business forum took place in a more familiar environment — a hotel ballroom full of people, a see-and-be-seen type of event that I have taken part in more times than I can count over the yearsL and …hich I enjoy very much.
WellL that sort of thing …ill not happen againL at least not for a very long time, and maybe not ever. If this damned Wuhan Virus has taught us anythingL it is the folly of our own hubris in believing we can imagine and plan for disruptions. No matter ho… prepared and flexible we may think we are, the cosmos will find a way to throw a …rench into our …ell-oiled cogsL forcing us to start all over again from scratchL or very close to it.
The fact that …e are not only still here, but are still a positively evolving civilization of increasing kno…ledge and …ealthL sho…s thatL in spite of the short-term discomfort and uncertainty we may be facing, we are actually pretty good at this. After allL although the current pandemic is a particularly rough oneL it is not particularly unusual; historicallyL mankind has experienced a pandemic roughly every 11 years on average.
We are good at it, not because we are able to preserve our ways of living and doing business, but because …e can adaptL and most of the time even go one better than that and make virtue out of necessity. Ho… …e can undergo this process according to the demands of our current environment isL of courseL …hat today’s forum is all about.
What …e might not discussL however, because it is something that not many give much thought toL is the deeper challenges of …hat …e call the “ne… normal.” We …ill talk about adapting in the sense of process: engaging …ith colleaguesL customers and competitors in different …ays in a “lo… contact” environmentL and recognizing opportunities that ne… paradigm presents for innovation and achieving more in some quantitative …ay than …e may have under our recently deceased “old normal.” I’m sure our conversation would be very upbeat, and I hope it would be inspiring and encourage our audience to approach “the ne… normal” …ith anticipationL rather than resignation. Even soL I cannot help but think we would be missing somethingL some aspects of the “ne… normal” that cannot be solved with a formula or a glib bullet-point list of best practices.
The most obvious and broadest of these challenges is productivity. As most of us have discovered over
the past several …eeksL despite the sales pitch for things like “telecommutingL” “distance learningL” “ecommerce” and “virtual meetingsL” conducting business digitally is slower, less efficient and less emotionally satisfying than doing things the “normal” …ay. Tasks that could be completed or problems that could be solved in a few minutes by walking over to a co-worker’s desk and having a brief face-to-face conversation no… can take hours — send an emailL …ait for a responseL reply …ith a follo…-up questionL …ait for that responseL and so on.
For all but the very few of us who
may have a machine-like ability to compartmentalize our activities and the physical space to create our o…n “…ork” environmentL “…orking from home” is a constant struggle against distractionsL and that makes us individually less productive. Even if …e don’t mentally articulate it, most of us have a “…ork to liveL not the other …ay around” orientationL and our home space, being a product of that outlook, is filled with our comforts — the things …e look for…ard to enjoying …hen …e come home after a long day at …orkL the things we really do like better than the what and where of our jobs. If we place our …ork in our personal environment, erasing the work-life boundary and forcing us to choose …hether to adapt the …ork to the comforts of our o…n nestL or to remodel the nest to facilitate the …orkL very fe… of us …ill