Crisis time is learning time. It always is. It may seem too easy to say that we are going to come out stronger on the other side. But history shows us that we always do.
Crisis management is always hard and dirty work that initially seems pointless. It is short-sighted, slightly panicky, and most often blind. But it is also crisis management that shows us what we are made of – as individuals, organizations, and societies. We make a lot of hard decisions in a short amount of time, protect our core (business, values....), focus on what is ‘need’ and let go of what is ‘nice’, while at the same time investing in the future.
At a societal level, in companies and organizations, in families and relationships, in personal values and actions, a crisis is always a 'wake up call' - in fact, it can be described as a phone call with an insistent voice asking: What are you really doing? What do you want to be doing? And how do you change your path and pace to get to where you want to be?
One could even say that a crisis is a gift that is wrapped in very ugly paper (i.e. light blue face mask-colored paper).
The COVID-19 crisis is a gift that we have by no means wanted, which is not very interesting to receive, and which sends some very negative and frightening signals. But what is inside is good. Very good. It just takes a while before we see it.