Tending the wounds

With lockdown easing faster and the desired – and desirable – return to “normal” operations, there is a serious risk of neglecting the individual and collective wounds of the past three months. And of building on sand…

These three months of crisis will leave traces, and not only economic ones: in bodies and minds, and in the way collectives work.

Some will have found unsuspected resources, in themselves and in others (the majority, if our study conducted at the dawn of the 50^th day of lockdown is to be believed). Others will have discovered, or confirmed, weaknesses. In themselves, and in others.

While the priority is to get everyone back to work (even if some never stopped, or were even overwhelmed), the temptation is great to forge ahead without looking back. Yet it is essential to take the time to pause for a moment, to look, to learn. This is not a matter of “well-being” that one can do without. It is a crucial issue, which relates to a term overused in recent months: “resilience”, which is not “resistance”. Because tomorrow, whether to face a new health crisis or a social one, or simply to get back on our feet, we will need sound, solid foundations, individual and collective.

Individual fractures

Many of us have suffered during these past weeks, consciously or unconsciously.

Through an overload of work, imposed or chosen, some drowned themselves in hyperactivity. Work had to be reorganised, one’s own and others’, the production needs of the crisis met, what could be saved salvaged… or simply any moment of solitude, silence or introspection avoided. These people are exhausted.

Others found themselves with no activity, or almost none. Or faced with activity far removed from their usual output, from their markers of professional recognition and/or social usefulness. And while some were able to devote their time and energy to other tasks, family or professional, many had to face an idleness they did not always fully accept. With a feeling of powerlessness, of uselessness, of isolation. These people are hollowed out.

Our study also revealed that what people missed most was human, physical contact. In private life as in the professional context. Medicine tells us that this lack will leave psychological and physical traces, not all of whose symptoms have yet emerged. The oldest have been victims of “failure to thrive” syndrome (“syndrome de glissement”), often fatal. But what about the younger ones?

Some of the answers lie in introspection, begun in recent weeks and to be continued. Others in outside help, medical or professional, in the privacy of a consulting room or in the workplace.

Collective fractures

At the collective level, the wounds are no doubt even more numerous. With consequences for individuals – because man is a social animal – and for the collectives that are the real drivers of organisational resilience.

Revealing, magnifying or accelerating the best and the worst, the crisis will have made people aware of, or confirmed, what each expected or hoped for from others. And it will have surprised them too. With commitment and generosity. But also with mistrust, cowardice, incompetence…

There will be those who discovered the strengths and talents of people they had merely rubbed shoulders with. And there will be those who waited in vain for recognition from others, those who were disappointed, abandoned, betrayed. Or who felt that way, rightly or wrongly. Because the other person’s mission or responsibility was explicit. Or because they believed it was, on the basis of agreements that were too often implicit – and therefore sometimes one-sided.

Will we want to – and will we be able to – face tomorrow’s crises with these others, and share their successes?

In some contexts, we will be able to choose who we take on board with us. Our colleagues, our suppliers, our employers and managers, our customers too. In others, we will have to make do (beyond 10% departures in a team, the social body is deeply destabilised).

In these cases, a new “social contract” will no doubt have to be defined. In the light of new technical and organisational arrangements (including, of course, remote working). But also of the skills and gaps revealed, whether they were brought to light by these shocks or are linked to new challenges and needs.

This collective work will above all require speech that is freed and shared, in a context of reassuring, enabling psychological safety. To build the shared future on sound, solid foundations. By expressing weaknesses and regrets, but also strengths, and recognition of each person’s contribution. Not as part of a “category”, but as an individual rich in their own diversity, their technical talents, but also their relational, human ones. And through collective commitment to shared objectives, acknowledged complementarities, and added value that is confirmed, recognised and expected.

Learning for tomorrow

Organisational resilience is not the ability to take blows. Because wounds and fractures leave traces, even when healed on the surface. In resources and materials, in bodies and minds. And under pressure, they open up again, often at the worst possible moment.

Collective fractures are also, often, those of lost trust. Trust established between individuals, because institutional trust does not exist (at best or at worst, there is credit given to, or suspicion of, an institution’s representatives, but no trust that is taken for granted). Trust that is built through adventures and battles, through ordeals and successes.

Preparing for tomorrow’s challenges by developing organisational resilience means, above all, learning from past events. This is what the military includes in the operational process as “lessons learned” (“retour d’expérience”). It is also one of the principles of “agile” approaches.

Learning not only technical skills, in a linear approach. But also learning from what happened to everyone, to open up perspectives in the face of complexity, break out of silos and adopt a systemic approach. Without looking for culprits, but in order to improve. Learning, too, from what worked well: by design, but also “by accident” (“positive deviance”).

Organisational resilience also means committing collectively. Because only a social body as a whole can move forward and win – otherwise, its useless members would already have been abandoned or absorbed, given the scarcity of every resource, starting with time.

So, while it is urgent to get fully back to work, will you decide to make this investment for tomorrow? Take a minute, look at yourselves, individually and collectively. Tend your wounds, and take stock of your strengths. Are you ready to set off, as you are today? Are you strong enough today to face tomorrow?

Sometimes it is urgent to put down your pack and “recondition” yourself, in order to go faster and further. Alone, and with others.