Post-corona: how to return to "normal" business full of uncertainty?
Posted: Wed Jan 22, 2025 8:41 am
We've done everything – we've been in isolation, we've been counting the infected with the Civil Protection Headquarters, we've been attending webinars, we've been shopping online – and now it's time to get back to normal. The new normal, as they've been preparing us for. It seems like cafes and hairdressers have long since returned to their old working rhythm, so obviously we have to too.
The blog title mentions the business of uncertainty that lies ahead. Uncertainty is a rather unpleasant state that can greatly disrupt the way we live and work. We humans generally have a need to live in a more or less planned, systematic and methodical way. We like to know what obligations we have in the day and what will happen to us in the near future, so that we can create short-term and long-term plans. This gives us a sense of security and peace. And the uncertainty of this post-corona period takes that feeling of security and peace like a money lender – quickly and very unpleasantly.
Let's face it, if we are business leaders, our entrepreneurial journey itself was already uncertain enough. Of course, now that uncertainty is much more intense, which puts an additional amount of greece whatsapp data stress on us (and on other individuals who are not entrepreneurs). Fortunately, our psychological and mental abilities are so great that they allow us to adapt even to extreme conditions. I like to joke that there is almost no environment that we cannot "throw" a person into without them finding their way sooner or later. We have the ability to survive much worse things than coronavirus. This ability is evolutionarily built into our DNA.
Has everything really changed? Yes, a new everyday life is ahead of us, but have our lives really changed 100%? They didn't. If we think about it a little more, a lot has remained the same. We still have some old habits, and we do some things as we did before the pandemic. It's the same thing in our companies - we probably still have most of the processes and procedures that have remained more or less unchanged. If we talk about change management from a psychological perspective, it can be easier for us to "chew" the change if we focus on exactly that - what has remained the same. And of course, we cannot say that the changes caused by the pandemic did not bring something good. If anything, we've realized how much time we can sometimes save by replacing live meetings with Zoom.
I'll go back for a moment to that famous propaganda message that has filled the media columns in recent months – the new normal. It sounds like a cliché at first, but if we examine it more closely, we will see that there is indeed some truth to it. They should actually have said “the new uncertain normal”. You know that feeling when you feel cold in the summer when you enter the sea, but as soon as you take a few strokes the temperature seems to become ideal? Or in the evening, when you go to bed and turn off all the lights, and after about twenty minutes you get up to go to the toilet and notice that you can see much better in the dark? Your body has gotten used to it. And this ability to adapt is not only related to our physical, but also to our psychological.
What does it mean, that we can "get used" to an uncertain everyday life? Exactly! It may sound crazy or unrealistic, but it's true. Because as our body gets used to the temperature of the sea, our psychological resistance also gets used to different stressors. We become stronger, more durable and more capable. Over time, this uncertainty will become easier to manage. And this will bring certain benefits: we will recover faster from failure, we will less indulge in disappointments and other unpleasant emotions, and we will "tune" our brain to constantly search for better and faster ways of performing certain activities.
Of course, this does not mean that we should really live “as if there is no tomorrow” and never plan again. On the contrary, it is nice to plan because it motivates and fulfills us. However, now we will be a little more, as the Americans would say, “on the lookout”. We will double-check some business decisions, perhaps change our shopping habits, and consider whether it is really worth it for us to enter into business cooperation with someone.
We don't have a crystal ball, nor will we ever have one. But would you really want one? Would you really want someone to tell you how the rest of your life will unfold, down to the smallest detail? Be honest with yourself and answer that question. When we're in the cinema, our experience of watching a film is much better when its content is exciting and the ending is uncertain – completely different from when we know from the first minute how the film will end.
The blog title mentions the business of uncertainty that lies ahead. Uncertainty is a rather unpleasant state that can greatly disrupt the way we live and work. We humans generally have a need to live in a more or less planned, systematic and methodical way. We like to know what obligations we have in the day and what will happen to us in the near future, so that we can create short-term and long-term plans. This gives us a sense of security and peace. And the uncertainty of this post-corona period takes that feeling of security and peace like a money lender – quickly and very unpleasantly.
Let's face it, if we are business leaders, our entrepreneurial journey itself was already uncertain enough. Of course, now that uncertainty is much more intense, which puts an additional amount of greece whatsapp data stress on us (and on other individuals who are not entrepreneurs). Fortunately, our psychological and mental abilities are so great that they allow us to adapt even to extreme conditions. I like to joke that there is almost no environment that we cannot "throw" a person into without them finding their way sooner or later. We have the ability to survive much worse things than coronavirus. This ability is evolutionarily built into our DNA.
Has everything really changed? Yes, a new everyday life is ahead of us, but have our lives really changed 100%? They didn't. If we think about it a little more, a lot has remained the same. We still have some old habits, and we do some things as we did before the pandemic. It's the same thing in our companies - we probably still have most of the processes and procedures that have remained more or less unchanged. If we talk about change management from a psychological perspective, it can be easier for us to "chew" the change if we focus on exactly that - what has remained the same. And of course, we cannot say that the changes caused by the pandemic did not bring something good. If anything, we've realized how much time we can sometimes save by replacing live meetings with Zoom.
I'll go back for a moment to that famous propaganda message that has filled the media columns in recent months – the new normal. It sounds like a cliché at first, but if we examine it more closely, we will see that there is indeed some truth to it. They should actually have said “the new uncertain normal”. You know that feeling when you feel cold in the summer when you enter the sea, but as soon as you take a few strokes the temperature seems to become ideal? Or in the evening, when you go to bed and turn off all the lights, and after about twenty minutes you get up to go to the toilet and notice that you can see much better in the dark? Your body has gotten used to it. And this ability to adapt is not only related to our physical, but also to our psychological.
What does it mean, that we can "get used" to an uncertain everyday life? Exactly! It may sound crazy or unrealistic, but it's true. Because as our body gets used to the temperature of the sea, our psychological resistance also gets used to different stressors. We become stronger, more durable and more capable. Over time, this uncertainty will become easier to manage. And this will bring certain benefits: we will recover faster from failure, we will less indulge in disappointments and other unpleasant emotions, and we will "tune" our brain to constantly search for better and faster ways of performing certain activities.
Of course, this does not mean that we should really live “as if there is no tomorrow” and never plan again. On the contrary, it is nice to plan because it motivates and fulfills us. However, now we will be a little more, as the Americans would say, “on the lookout”. We will double-check some business decisions, perhaps change our shopping habits, and consider whether it is really worth it for us to enter into business cooperation with someone.
We don't have a crystal ball, nor will we ever have one. But would you really want one? Would you really want someone to tell you how the rest of your life will unfold, down to the smallest detail? Be honest with yourself and answer that question. When we're in the cinema, our experience of watching a film is much better when its content is exciting and the ending is uncertain – completely different from when we know from the first minute how the film will end.