Block 6 Dealing with Discontinuities

So what is a ‘Discontinuity’?

Well, normally it is when we have to hit the alarm button.  Earthquakes, hurricanes, volcanic eruptions, the toxic debt economic crisis that started in 2007, Mad Cow Disease (in the UK), the Tsunami that hit much of south east Asia and Indonesia, 9/11 and other terrorist attacks, and now we have CoVid entering the list and climate change too, plus the rapid depletion of the world’s resources in the face of industry and population growth.

These are moments when the ‘normal scheme of things‘ is dramatically interrupted (and perhaps the world changes forever).  But in a strangely perverse sense, the interruption of normality is, frankly, ‘normal’ in itself.  

We don’t know exactly where or when an earthquake may happen, but we know they happen all the time and we know the faultline they favour.   We don’t know exactly where or when a new disease might appear (the so-called ‘Spanish Flu’ killed far more people at the beginning of the 20th Century than WW1), but we do know that diseases do come from nowhere and strike – and we appreciate that with modern transport systems and growing populations such diseases can be exported very quickly indeed (there have been at least 6 major outbreaks of the Plague (La Peste) for example, and isolated cases pop up all the time … same for the Ebola virus).

The question is: how do we deal with such ‘assaults’ on normal life: family, life, commerce, business?

There is a whole field of study and practice called ‘Crisis Management’.  So what can we learn from it to protect our lives, our families and our futures from the crisis called CoVid that we are still living through?  Are there principles we can draw?  What can employers do to learn IN the current crisis and prepare themselves for the next one

Some links for now to get you thinking:

• Crisis Management Process Steps
• CoVid and Confinement: opportunities for Higher Education to change?
• Predictions for radical(?) Post-CoVid change

I will be asking you to reflect upon (research, analyse and evaluate) enforced change and chosen change during and post (hopefully there will be a ‘post’ phase, but we don’t even know that as yet) CoVid…

Remember the old saying: « It is an ill wind that blows nobody any good »…. meaning that even in adversity there are opportunities to develop and prosper, there are important lessons to be learned that we may never have taken on board without the force of discontinuities we could not avoid.   Perhaps, had we not had WW2, technological innovations would not have moved society forward at the pace they have done since – maybe we would still be waiting for a man/woman to set foot on the Moon……  maybe France would not have a single nuclear power station …..

What lessons is business set to learn……………?