Observing the efforts of leaders around the world trying to engage populations to practice physical or social distancing to flatten the curve of the coronavirus spread, I came to realize that this challenge sounds familiar to several managers working in crisis management or trying to implement change in organizations. So, in this post, I would like to invite you to reflect on why is it difficult to embrace change and share some reflections on a few aspects of human behavior that normally make people avoid change or keep disengaged even with massive communication and incentives towards the adoption of the desired solution.

1. Anxiety Avoidance 

“… habit is one of the means by which we hold off ambiguity and anxiety. Simply reflect on how irritated, that is how anxious, you feel, when your habits, your daily routines, your conventional expectations are interrupted.” James Hollis 

It is not easy to feel comfortable with the uncertainty, because uncertainty generates anxiety, and according to the description of James Hollis anxiety is “…free-floating, unattached, not unlike the fog that obscures the road we drive…anxiety is ambiguous and paralyzing…”.

We create habits to avoid anxiety, and when we need to face an experience that requires change, we are asked to deal with the anxiety that we purposefully want to avoid. In this context, any imposed disruption in our daily lives has the potential to shorten our emotional threshold and makes us less objective when facing the proposed challenges. This is probably one of the motives why we resist and sometimes fight against change.

Living in a time in which the world is facing a pandemic, we are experiencing the need to engage in a huge change in our habits and behaviors. So, we are experiencing a collective feeling of anxiety that is shortening our emotional threshold and stimulating impulsive behaviors and addictions as mechanisms to manage anxiety. 

So, to cope with anxiety, it is helpful to reflect and talk about the feelings that are triggering impulsive behaviors. In doing so, we can bring our emotional threshold to normal levels and face the change in a better way. People that experienced situations of deep emotional stress report that they managed the anxiety living one day at a time and looking for the positive sides of the experience to stay mentally healthy.  

2. Individual Agendas 

Facing change, each one of us is impacted by the disruption differently. So, in a tentative to deal with the anxiety that comes with the disruption, we try to make sense of what is happening to react. Added to the fact that we are affected differently, our biases interfere in our interpretation of the situation, stimulating reflexive behaviors in response to the impact of the disruption on the individual level.

” What comes out of our mouth and our overall demeanor in the conversation is deeply dependent on what is going on inside our head. We cannot be appropriately humble if we misread or misjudge the situation we are in and what is appropriate in that situation. We must become aware that our minds are capable of producing biases, perceptual distortions, and inappropriate impulses. ” Edgar H. Schein 

Reflecting on the challenge that communities around the world are facing to defeat the coronavirus, it seems that several communities are divided into small groups, united by similar individual perceptions. The groups tend to frame the social problem based on the aspect that is causing a major impact and fear at the individual level. 

Some groups of people that were deeply affected financially tend to look desperately for an alternative to avoid the lockdown of economies. On the other hand, people that live with elders in the same household strongly reject the idea of partial lockdowns that suggest keeping just the high-risk groups in isolation. 

It looks like the battle of individual agendas makes it more difficult for individuals to see the social problem from a bigger perspective and realize that the damaging power of the coronavirus is that he is capable to destroy our social system. So, the only way to preserve individual well-being is by letting go with our individual agendas and focusing on collective goals.

The individual agendas are legitimate, but as we are facing a social challenge, it is crucial to get everybody on board with a common strategy that prioritizes the collective goals, or we will get stuck with different groups in the community trying to move in different directions. So, a successful engagement process requires a clear vision of the future that needs to be consistently communicated in different ways to connect different audiences.

3. Lack of Vision 

“… leaders must “come down to earth” and forsake headquarters for the front lines … reengage their people’s senses, getting back to the raw facts of what’s happening … They must also leave behind maps, models, and formal language and replace them with metaphors – visions and images – values and the language of commitment – action and plain speaking.” David K. Hurst 

The lack of a vision is one of the reasons for low engagement with the change, but people engage if they are driven by a clear vision of improvement for them, their families, friends, and communities. So, in crisis management, the leaders need to play their A-game. David K. Hurst mentions that the leaders’ task is creating a shared vision, a common will among people who are often confused and frightened. Leadership needs to tell a story that engages people and makes them feel that they can act individually and make a difference collectively. Especially if the challenge is tough, the vision and the narrative need to be clear and authentic. 

Reflecting on the current social challenge, the success in the population engagement with the virus mitigation strategy requires above all consistency in the messages spread from the leadership because the social media can amplify messages and feelings that can reinforce the shared vision or create a lot of noise feeding fear, angry and disengagement. 

Hollis, James, Finding Meaning in the Second Half of Life, ISBN 9781101216699, Gotham Books, (2006)

Schein, Edgar H, Humble Inquiry: The Gentle Art of Asking Instead of Telling, ISBN978-1-60994-981-5, Berrett-Koehler Publishers, Inc., (2013).

Hurst, David K., “The New Ecology of Leadership: Business Mastery in a Chaotic World”, ISBN 978-0-231-15970-8, Columbia University Press, (2012).

Photo credit: gcouros on Visual hunt / CC BY-NC-SA