Coronavirus is ramping up fast in the world as well as the many pieces of information about the virus. Unfortunately, lots of fake information is spreading; however, we see that many groups of society are aware that the key action to making this pandemic manageable is engaging people to practice the social distancing to flatten the curve.
Practice social distancing is not easy for human beings. It is uncomfortable to restrain ourselves from social interaction because social life is very precious to us. However, checking the stories of the countries affected by the Coronavirus in the previous months, it is interesting to note that in the cases were people engaged sooner on practicing social distancing, the healthcare systems were capable to manage better the high influx of higher-risk patients.
For this post, I would like to invite you to reflect on how can we make the idea of practicing social distancing viral. Maybe we could apply the same tactics from the virus to beat him in the end.
Coordinated Actions
“Change happens best when something is memorable. Only the things that stick can drive someone into changing how they behave or think. That means that change ideas have got to be put across in ways that are different, ways that grab people’s attention. They have to be presented and structured in ways that makes them sticky” The Art of Change Making
In the efforts of making the idea of practicing social distancing sticky, it is necessary a full alignment of many sectors of the society supporting the strategy. As much disrupting as it can be, the shutdown of schools, big entertainment events and non-essential services needs to happen in a coordinated fashion to grab people’s attention and engage even the most skeptical individuals.
Clear Focus and Communication
“Our communication had to be excellent – everyone on the same page, everyone with the same facts, as our audiences would seize on any discrepancies in our stories as evidence of deception” David K. Hurst
Additionally to the coordination of actions, it is pivotal that the leadership shows a perfect alignment in the communication and transparency to gain trust and engagement from the crowds. The message needs to be crystal clear and coherent behavior from the leaders is a requirement to promote change.
” … a sense of collective engagement and power, of a team with a shared mission and common purpose but with each person contributing in a unique way.” David K. Hurst
“Note that effective change is not just driven from the “top” down – deliberate, decisive, dramatic – but also from the bottom up and the middle out – experimental, incremental, emergent. ” Henry Mintzberg
Indeed, an outbreak requires fast measures from top-down, deliberate, decisive and dramatic measures. However, change happens as well from bottom-up, if local communities of engaged individuals use their power of influence to make the message viral.
If each one of us focuses on engaging at least one or two people on the idea of practicing social distancing, we can make social distancing viral and refrain the coronavirus’ attack that is hurting our communities.
Dear Reader, please use your power of influence. Social distancing works, and if we work together now, we can minimize human losses and resume our normal lives and business sooner.
Systems Leadership Steering Group, 2015, The Art of Change Making, ISBN 978-0-9931400-9-9, The Leadership Centre
Hurst, David K., “The New Ecology of Leadership: Business Mastery in a Chaotic World”, Columbia University Press (2012).
Mintzberg, Henry, 2009, Simply Managing: what managers do and can do better. ISBN978-1-60994-923-5, Berrett-Koehler Publishers, Inc
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