Early Insights on Recovery

Over the past year, we haven't collected much insight on what recovery from the COVID pandemic will look like. Most COVID-related data we've seen in projects describe the "response" to the pandemic's onset not its recovery. That's beginning to change. Like a switch was thrown, we are suddenly seeing a growing number of project participants articulate contextualized insights on the way social and economic systems will experience recovery. 

One reason "recovery data" may have been missing is that most of us had no idea how big, how bad, and how long this pandemic will be. As these uncertainties begin to resolve, we're seeing some themes emerge on the topic of COVID recovery.

Here are a few early insights on the topic of recovery.

• LIMITED WINDOW - As part of the recovery process, there is a finite window for dramatic, paradigm-shifting change in structure, process, and policy. Indications of the window closing will involve normalizing the new changes into a new status quo.
• NO TURNING BACK - Indelible changes have and will be cast. Fighting, ignoring, or missing these changes will be a common source of frustration, poor performance, and failure. For example, remote and virtual interactions are here to stay and will affect work, education, community, government, the economy, the justice system, transportation systems, etc.
• MINDSET MOVEMENT - People are changing the way they look at and thinking about things like community cohesion, inclusion and diversity, work-life balance, the roles of government, healthcare, education, and industry. As people change their mindsets, their behaviors will change, too. Outreach, marketing, and other types of strategic engagement will be affected by shifts in mindsets.
• PREPARE - None of us have ever been at this point before. No one knows how the post-COVID era will play out. Not only does it seem that the rules of the game are changing, some feel that we might be starting a new and very different game. One thing is certain, we all have a stake in what happens next. The question to ask is how best to prepare for the changes.

We'll share more as we gather more insights. Let the recovery begin!