What I “Knew” that Wasn’t True in the Time of COVID-19

Are you driving your organization by looking in the rear-view mirror?

Brian Dieter, CEO of Mary Greeley Medical Center (a Baldrige Award recipient in 2019), and I had an interesting discussion last week.  He was comparing the way that many executives run their organizations to the way we all used to drive cars – spending an inordinate amount of time looking at the rearview mirror and with a folding paper roadmap to help guide our routes.  Then came GPS in its various incarnations that gave us more forward-looking information, but nothing prepared us for real-time navigation like Waze that identifies road hazards, accidents, heavy traffic, and police both in plain sight as well as hidden to hopefully prevent those pesky (and expensive) speeding tickets. In slow traffic, it offers alternate routes and predicts arrival times.

I saw an immediate parallel between my old navigational aid, GPS, and Waze, with what many of us have encountered in the COVID-19 pandemic. Initially, we were mostly reacting to information about our usual routes and comparing that with what had been “normal” in the immediate past.  But with the pandemic version of Waze, we suddenly were flooded with warnings and choices and decisions that needed to be made if we were going to navigate safely – for ourselves and for others we were in charge of or caring for.

What Are Things I “Knew” that Turned Out Not to Be True?

1. People would trust scientific evidence and abide by recommended pandemic precautions.  Rather, people trusted different sources of “news” and were unlikely to be informed or persuaded by other sources.

2. People would be alarmed at the soaring infection and death rates and would curtail large, indoor events with unvaccinated, unmasked attendees.  Rather, even as hospitals were overrun, mortuaries and funeral homes out of space, and mass burials becoming a reality, a large proportion of Americans appeared to be unfazed by the magnitude of this disaster.

3. People would refuse to let a global pandemic with dire consequences become a political football and would band together as fellow Americans. Perhaps this has been my greatest disappointment of what I thought were the “truths” as we knew them.

Those are some of the things that have saddened me to see the errors of my beliefs.  However, there have been some unexpected and positive responses to the pandemic that give me hope.

4. For years, employees have clamored for more flexible work schedules and conditions, and suddenly many employers who have stubbornly dug in their heels and resisted even small trials of changes became “virtual” workplaces seemingly overnight. Many business analysts are predicting that a return to a 40+-hour week in the office is a thing of the past as new hybrid models emerge.

5. Years of 100+K miles on airplanes and hundreds of nights in hotels are now being called into question for both time and cost considerations. Yes, face-to-face meetings that help build rapport and trust may still be ideal at the beginning of a working relationship, but they may not be required to sustain one.

6. For years, it’s been easy to rationalize the need for more clothes, more shoes, more gadgets, more, more, more.  Now suddenly, after nearly two years in self-imposed isolation, it’s become clear to me that I don’t need more. Simplifying and becoming more appreciative are actually helpful attitudes to work on increasing in our lives.

What Have You Discovered During this Pandemic

And how has it changed your previous beliefs, and how will it change your looking at your future through a heads-up windshield and a predictive navigation device?  How will the Baldrige Core Values and Concepts of agility and resilience serve you?

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There’s always something good coming from the Baldrige Performance Excellence Progam (BPEP)!