Yes, there is a “new normal” – and now what?

When you browse through your LinkedIn feed these days, or any other media, you find a certain amount of talk about the „new normal“ – that we, by now, have all understood is a fact. But what comes after that? What comes after the common sense about that COVID-19 changed a lot of the certainties in business as usual, maybe to the better? It seems to have sunk in quite quickly, even the understanding that we have to adapt a new leadership style, new remote practices and an overall changed management style when it comes to culture and trust. But then what?

From contemplating to implementing

A lot of different people – the doubters, the confident, the worriers, the flexible, the motivation-machines – are now faced with the same situation, that they have to adapt to: A world after (or in fact still quite in the middle of) a global pandemic and all the things that change. Some seem to even go on with business as usual, just slightly different. Is that how it works? We know there was something but we’d rather act like there wasn’t (until we have to)?

It seems to be quite the hard step to get from understanding that a “new normal” has arrived to actually understanding how to deal with it on a daily basis. Things seem to come to a hold. It’s definitely a process, and one that may move quite slowly from slightly different to ever a little more different.

Is business as usual the answer?

The sense of the whole world stopping during COVID-19’s initial descent, made a lot of business action also stop and freeze for a while. Even leadership froze in the wake of new working conditions, Corona-support and health measures. But leaving the lethargic state to something new is so much harder than it sounds.

Maybe not business as usual, but business really helps. The people that seem to conquer this situation best, seem to be the ones, that never fully gave in to the shock and kept their business going under ever changing circumstances. No drastic changes but constant adaptation to whatever was happening. In a surely ever-changing world not the worst answer to crisis right?

Be the change you talk about

All the talking about the “new normal” and the slight sensation that this alone doesn’t lead anywhere, may just mean that instead of talking about the change you need to be the change. You read it on all these motivational Facebook-Posts over the last about 20 years: be the change you want to see in the world. And a little changed that is: be the “new normal” and – well – stop just talking about it. So, there it is.