The COVID-19 pandemic left a significant impact on people from all walks of life, ranging from students and young scientists to established businesspeople and experts. While some believe that it was a once-in-a-millennium event, others anticipate that many calamities and disasters may arise in the coming decades. We are currently living in an era of uncertainty, filled with unknown unknowns, as one American politician described it. Consequently, we must prepare for the possibility of future unexpected events and be ready to cope with them. But how can we prepare for these unexpected events?
Here are six crucial lessons that we can learn from COVID-19.
Lesson 1 - Prepare for the unexpected
In his book "The Black Swan," Dr. Nassim Nicholas Taleb discussed the possibility of unexpected events arising out of nowhere. The concept was that these catastrophic events would happen very rarely, perhaps once in a lifetime. However, recent global and regional events have brought a lot of surprises with significant consequences. The Black Swan has been returning more frequently and on a regular basis, making it almost impossible to predict the next occurrence, and COVID-19 is a prime example of this.
Therefore, we have to be ready for an unexpected turn of events and our preparedness for unforeseen situations has four major dimensions and challenges: personal, social, educational, and work-related. Therefore, we must focus on each of these dimensions and challenges and start thinking about how to fill each section with solutions and personal actions.
Lesson 2 - Resilience matters
The importance of resilience is widely discussed in social sciences, psychology, management books, and social media posts. In today's fast-changing world, we face many new challenges that we did not anticipate a few decades ago. These challenges include not only traditional personal and business-related issues, but also psychological ones that can affect our self-esteem and self-confidence. To tackle these issues, we need to build our resilience in various ways, such as by tapping into our personal networks or working with personal and professional coaches. COVID-19 put immense pressure on our self-confidence, which was a completely new experience for many of us. Suddenly, we had to adapt to an entirely different environment of being confined to the individual boxes of our homes. For a while, many people were alone or only surrounded by a small circle of relatives, friends, or family members. There were countless reasons for losing self-confidence, and traditional channels for boosting it were not accessible.
Therefore, one of the most significant lessons from COVID-19 is to prepare our own personal resilience tools to boost our self-confidence and self-esteem.
Lesson 3 - Importance of self-discipline and self-management
One news line on TV and report on the pandemic changed our lives and lifestyle - even more correct to say – totally changed our daily routine, our workplace, and for many - our working and organizational culture and work attitudes. No more alarms ringing at 7.00 am reminding us to be in the office or university auditorium at 8.00 or 9.00 am. No longer need to dress up in the business casual or business smart and prepare yourself to meet and impress colleagues, customers, and partners at a conference hall. More importantly, your bosses are not around backstopping to monitor and evaluate your performance, punctuality, and attendance directly. Suddenly, many people found themselves at the home office able to slowly sip morning coffee for hours and stay in pajamas, 24/7. We learned that with this freedom came a challenge - all of us are still obliged to deliver results, complete projects, and manage other people, well, online.
In this environment, the ability to enforce and manage self-discipline became a precious skill. It would help if you became your very own manager who is enforcing tough rules and schedule or punctuality – and reminding yourself not to procrastinate for one more coffee jar, for another hour, or to add half an hour for an important news article on Instagram posting, or chat with a classmate with whom you did not talk for ages. At the end of the day, week, or month – as many of us suddenly discovered that we still need to deliver results not relying anymore on our boss or partner. It is you who must enforce self-discipline using old fashion lifehacks that you learned at the university or use new applications, which you have discovered and downloaded just now.
In the case of future calamities - the key to success in many endeavors would be an ability to enforce self-discipline and self-management without waiting for someone to do so.
Lesson 4 - ICT literacy
A few years ago, Harvard Business Review dedicated a special issue to "man-machine collaboration". However, the COVID-19 pandemic brought man-machine interaction to a completely new level. We all knew how to use computers for most of our needs and basic office duties. We might even have basic equipment at home, although it may not be the latest or most advanced. Only a few people participated in the race to acquire the latest equipment, software, and gadgets, often just to show off their superiority to their less tech-savvy colleagues.
The situation changed abruptly when people were forced to work from home and realized that they were not as well-equipped as they thought. They found themselves with old, dusty computers and outdated software. Suddenly we did now have access to our beloved IT wizards from their back offices who could usually come to their aid during difficult moments in the past.
Therefore, we need to learn to convert our homes into smart homes, as we need to quickly learn how to use the latest teleconference gadgets, install software, and update our hardware all by ourselves. We need to set up operational code for searching how-to guides online, learn how to use new internet-based applications and update our skills. The main lesson from our dive into the ICT universe during COVID-19 was that we need to continue developing and constantly updating our ICT skills to handle hardware and software by ourselves.
Lesson 5 - Importance of your personal networks
The importance of personal networks cannot be overemphasized. Remote working from home offices during the COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the need for having many personal networks. Quarantines and restrictions have forced us to adapt quickly to the new reality, and we have realized the importance of personal networks for both personal and professional discussions. These discussions could range from setting up a home office and dealing with specialized equipment for teleconferences to in-depth discussions on the advantages and disadvantages of software tools or online banking.
The lesson learnt is simple: in times of lengthy isolation, we need all kinds of personal psychological support and personal time with loved ones, friends, and close relatives, even if it is online on Zoom or Microsoft Teams. The COVID-19 related social communication channels have illustrated the value of personal networks, which we have heavily relied on for our well-being and social communication.
Lesson 6 - Reorganizing your workplace
There is an old proverb that says, “Necessity is the mother of invention.” For more than two decades, experts from academia and some innovative managers have talked about the changing nature of the workplace, predicting that it would become more user-friendly and flexible. However, most of the time, these ideas remained in designer desktops, the minds of individual innovators, and the plans of managers.
The COVID-19 pandemic changed many things overnight. Millions of workers and managers had to learn how to work reduced hours and embrace hybrid work arrangements. Despite initial concerns about possible chaos in the management of our workflow, we learned to redesign and set up home offices and work productively from our homes thanks to the latest ICT technologies.
At the managerial level, many companies developed procedures, plans, and rules to incorporate remote work into their organizational procedures and culture. Simple operations moved even further, considering establishing remote work on an impairment basis.
Many professionals discovered that we are not tied to specific locations. Many of us have our own homes, but apparently, our workplace is where our laptop can sit comfortably, whether at your home table, in the corner of Starbucks, or even a bench in the park. This led to the rise of the social and economic phenomena called digital nomads. Young ICT professionals equipped with skills and powerful computer equipment started to move around the world.
The main lesson is that we need to learn that the era of traditional workplace is gone despite all its benefits of socializing, teaming up, brainstorming and many other benefits! Even those who did not believe in technology and postponed learning about ICT equipment and opportunities had to run to fill the gaps. The first step should include establishing comfortable and highly personalized workplace away from your old-fashion office, setting up everything according to your preferences, work habits and family situation - from video conferencing, to learning how to handle new equipment and software and having uninterrupted and silent personal time.
