“The Words we use become the house we live in” a quote by Hafiz.
What Words are people using when they are talking about the event(lockdown) and the Covid-19 Virus?
Some Examples:
When all this is over,we are going back to what we had before.
It will be like a miracle,it will all be gone.
Things will never be the same again.
Conspiracy?
If we connect the above we should consider the Kubler-Ross Change Cycle and see if we can place ourselves on this curve.
Background:Elisabeth Kubler-Ross was a Swiss-American Psychiatrist,a pioneer in near-death studies and from this came the theory of 5 Stages of grief.It has been part of the Management Development Programmes presented for many years and at times we would lay out the curve on the floor and ask participants to walk this model and stop at the different stages contemplating the following questions.
Have I been here before?
Do I know somebody experiencing this or a stage?
What help could be given at the different stages.
Some comments on the curve:
There is no fast forward.
It can also be experienced by people receiving good news.
There is a Movie “The company men” with well known actors such as Ben Affleck, Kevin Costner and Tommy Lee Jones.Although never referenced or mentioned this is a great study of different people acting out the curve in different ways.
Don’t believe the theme was intended to support the Change Cycle but go and watch it.It was discovered by chance on a flight while searching for a movie that will help to pass the time.
So the change cycle has 5 stages although it is often also shown with 7 stages see the attached diagram.
Back to Covid-19:
Stage 1. Shock. What were our feelings/emotions when the State President announced the lock down? Personally,we were staying in Gauteng and had been there for almost 8 months.We had a day to get back to Mossel Bay and were just thinking of travelling 1250 Km in the shortest time possible.At home,in Mossel bay,we could see that the months intermittent absence had left a lot of routine maintenance undone and especially at the coast.There was a great need to restore all the wood structures to it’s original appearance.
That took care of the first Lockdown period with little time to reflect except for the constant flow of information from Audible books.21 Lessons from the 21st Century by Yuval Noah Harari was a constant source of information and governing thoughts, among others. Since no exercise was allowed the manual labour became a way of getting exercise-Denial?-Maybe.
There were some Strength Finder interviews via SKYPE and eventually two ZOOM group discussions with a local church initially around the Leadership Domains of the group but then around the question “what do we do when all this is over?”
Each participant has a copy of the Change Cycle and were invited to reflect ,which caused me to start re-visiting the subject and document and pen some thoughts.
The STOCKSDALE paradox was a description Jim Collins gave to a story about an American Prisoner of war Admiral Jim Stockdale.He was imprisoned for eight years and upon release wrote a book with his wife “In Love and War”
Interviewed by Jim Collins and reminded of his eight years and the brutality,his simple explanation for survival was “I never lost faith in the end story”
In response to the question who didn’t make it out , he said that is easy , the optimist.Oh they were the ones who said,we will be out by Christmas.Christmas would come and go and then they would say we will be out by Easter and Easter would come and go.They died of a broken heart.
Where does that leave us in terms of The Change Cycle? You see “I never lost faith in the end of the story”can only happen when the first four stages have been overcome.
Here is the challenge:Listen to the words people use and if this identifies with the stages one through four help them to concentrate on the end of the story,that is if you are there yourself.This will happen only if you have mentally experimented and made a decision of what the story will be.
CLOSING:American fighter pilots flying the YF17 plane at twice the speed of sound use what they know as the OODA loop while flying.
O Observe
O Options
D Decide
A Act
It can be done if we know the story and have faith in it.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS:
Jim Collins From Good to Great
Elisabeth Kubler Ross The grief cycle.