What if… we all decide to change at the same time?

I grew up in a big family of 5 brothers. My mother, our commander in chief, was the one in charge of keeping us in line.  She was the one who took the social risk of taking the hard and unpopular decisions that we would only understand once we became adults and were able to look back and see the benefits of these decisions.  There was no democracy in my house and we did not vote for her to lead us.  She was not taking decisions to get more votes in the next election or to raise acceptance ratings either!

In a democratic government, before most decisions are taken, the impact of the acceptance ratings is considered.  This is in normal situations.  Right now though, our world is enduring the COVID19 pandemic and the preservation of human life has taken preference over government popularity for the first time in history.  We are living in a unique time where we have the opportunity to see our world leaders show leadership, some of them for the first time in their lives.  We still do not know how this crisis will end but when it ends, what if we all decide to change our ways at the same time and we start taking the social risk of proposing hard and unpopular decisions?

Working from home due to mandatory lockdown has helped corporations run live tests of do we really need to sit in traffic or take public transportation every day to go to an office? Working remotely brings families closer, reduces pollution and saves money for the companies who decide to go this route.  Now we have been pushed by mother earth to be creative and use the technological tools that we have available to us and were too scared, too stubborn or too busy to consider before.

Home schooling has helped us to actually consider it as a valid option for our children to have better education available and different cultural experiences at an affordable price. Not to mention the positive impact on the environment.

When this crisis is over what if we all decide to change and promote working from home in a way that governments offer tax deductions to companies that are willing to have more than 50% of their staff working remotely.  Families receiving tax deductions for choosing home schooling for their children.  Also, to motivate the reduction of over population, families receive tax deduction for having fewer children instead of having more.

We live in democracy and I cannot expect to replicate the way I was raised to a country’s government but I definitely think that we should consider changing our ways.  Maybe employees are willing to consider salary reduction if the company they work for allows them to work from home.  Maybe soft drink companies will be willing to use 100% recycled plastic bottles if they received a tax deduction.

What if online banking becomes the only option for everyone?  What if governments decide to go 100% virtual.  This crisis has opened up so many opportunities to consider how to change our ways and how to take decisions that in other times would have been considered too hard, unpopular or even ludicrous.  We can either do nothing or we can take advantage of this window that mother nature has given us.  We decide.  Cheers!

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Author: Ricardo Mock

Africa 24/7 Marine Manager at Maersk Line, Cape Town. Psychologist, Certified Crossfit Trainer, Health Coach and Motivator. Experience working in Project Management (Operations, Human Resources and Sales), innovation driving change. Specialties: Project Management, Sales, General Operations, Lean Six Sigma (LSS GB Certified), ERP´s implementation and Change Management. MBTI Profile: ENFP-T

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