Observations-Some Thoughts on How We Deal with Change

 I was just having a chat with a friend about her dilemma: whether she should send her kids back to school. She is conflicted because she understands that most people do not have the luxury that she does, she's a stay at home mom, and the family can afford for her to stay home, which means that she can have her kids take online classes just to make sure that they are safe. She is afraid of the unknowns: the school district buildings are old and small, and the buildings are not air conditioned, a potential recipe for disaster. She also understands that there are single parent families who cannot afford to make the same choice as she does, she understands that there are children who desperately need social interaction with their classmates for their emotional development. She wonders why we have to choose one option over the other, she wonders why her school system cannot accommodate all the citizen’s needs more equitably? She wonders why it has to be one or the other?

In these pandemic times, we are seeing many such conflicts over what we want versus what we must do. These conflicts arise from the fact that we are reacting to transient conditions: the situation we are facing is a massive disruption of our status quo, our steady state. We humans are horrible at dealing with change, we prefer our status quo, our steady state and when we are faced with any change in our routine our minds runs at a million miles an hour and we overreact in response to the disruption in our routine than to the actual change in our circumstances.  Our inability to grapple with our emotional discomfort dealing with the disruption magnifies the actual change in our circumstances.

When presented with the dilemma, we are extremely focused on our immediate decision, as it should be. We have a problem to resolve and it is a difficult problem, so we devote all of our attention on resolving the problem. There is no foreseeable way to resolve this issue without potentially sacrificing a part of our society. If we forced the children back to school, even with all the preventive measures that we can enact realistically, there is not enough evidence that we can avoid people getting sick or even worse, lose their lives. The fear concerns mostly older people: the teachers, older relatives who live in the same house with children, and even then, we are not sure that the children are completely immune from the disease or are completely immune from dying. There are also instances of death for the young, which we do not completely understand. On the other hand, if we decided to have our schools go completely online we are ignoring the needs of those  who do not have a choice in the matter: those who are financially unable to afford child care, which is more people than most of us realize; those who have no other recourse, single parent families, people who don’t have family locally who can help take care of the children  while the parents work, online or otherwise; and those who have children whose behavioral health are squarely dependent on their ability to socially interact with other children. Atop of all that, enabling technology which are essential for online learning are not equally distributed amongst the population, essential enabling technologies which many people do not have or can not afford. It adds up to a potential disaster, which we are witnessing in real time.

There is a reason why the debate over the decision has grown heated and acrimonious. I do not have an answer to it, because both sides make strong arguments.

If we pulled back from the heat of the debate, if we took a big picture view from an elevation, the questions evolve and morph in tone and reasoning.

If our workers are so essential, why do we not provide for their peace of mind regarding the care of their children when they work?

Why do we defer the responsibility of taking care of the children to teachers? Teachers are supposed to teach, they are not supposed to be childcare.

Why do we put our teachers in the position of being front line first responders during this pandemic? They were never trained for this scenario, and more importantly, they never signed up for this kind of hazardous duty, nor are they compensated as front line first responders. They are in this position because the other portions of the safety net have collapsed, either by neglect or by selfish design, and they were at the bottom.

Why is it that we, the wealthiest industrialized country, do not make access to the essential enabling technologies readily accessible for everyone that wants or needs one? If it is essential enabling technologies, does it not mean that one need the technology to survive and thrive in our society?  Why is it that there are urban neighborhoods and rural hamlets that does not have wifi coverage at all?

Why is it that when we decided to go 100% online that there are still families who do not have the essential enabling technology in their homes in order to go 100% online?

These are not new questions. These questions have been asked ad infinitum since March.

The simple answer is that we did not foresee this Black Swan event, that we were taken by surprise. This is a fair answer given the magnitude of the pandemic. The follow up question to Black Swan Events is: could we have done more to make our infrastructure anti-fragile? Is it possible to create our society structures so that even if we cannot completely ride through the transient situation such as this pandemic unscathed? Is it possible to have an anti-fragile system in place so that our society can mitigate the worst effects of any disaster and survive with enough of our status quo, our steady state intact to quickly restart?

I believe the answer is yes. Seth Godin’s blog today answer the question.

From Seth Godin’s Blog of September 24, 2020  (Godin 2020)

When can we talk about our systems?

Your team is down by a few points and the game is almost over. What play should you call?

[When can we talk about the system of drafting and training that got your team to this situation in the first place?]

Your back hurts and you think you need surgery to help with the pain.

[When can we talk about the technique you use when you go running every day?]

Your employee shows up late regularly. How can you get them to care more?

[When can we talk about your hiring and leadership approaches?]

There’s racial injustice and unfairness all around us.

[Can we talk about persistent indoctrination around caste?]

You just had an argument with your brother. What’s the best way for him to see that you’re right?

[When can we talk about the narratives your family has developed for generations?]

Universities and local schools are in crisis with testing in disarray and distant learning ineffective…

[When can we talk about what school is for?]

It’s comfortable to ignore the system, to assume it is as permanent as the water surrounding your goldfish. But the fact that we have these tactical problems is all the evidence we need to see that something is causing them, and that spending time on the underlying structure could make a difference.

In a crisis, there’s maximum attention. And in a crisis, we often discard any pretense of caring about systems and resilience and focus only on how to get back to normal. This is precisely why normal is what normal is, because we fight to get back to it.

Changing the system changes everything. And it might be even less work than pouring water on today’s tactical emergency.

This is the reason WHY we have systems, so that we are not running around responding to each situation as it occurs, applying ad hoc solutions to potentially permanent situations. This is the reason WHY we need to have safety nets, to prevent any momentary catastrophes from disrupting our status quo lives and societies. So, when my friend and her family is going through the agony of debating the benefits and pitfalls of her children’s schooling options, her long term solution should be: we should change our system so that we won’t have to be so panicked next time something catastrophic befalls us. This is not to say that we should construct a system that is perfect, no system can be one size fits all for all time, but we should strive for a system that is flexible and antifragile so that the least havoc be wreaked.

Works Cited

Godin, Seth. "When Can We Talk About Our System?" Seth's Blog. Seth Godin, September 24, 2020.