Why Is This So Hard?

by Marilyn Moore

“Why can’t I get anything done?”  “I’m not feeling very productive.”  “I used to be really efficient, but not now….”  “I thought I’d have all this extra time, but somehow or other, it’s not working for me.”  I have read these words, heard these words, and said these words, over the past five weeks.  From people at all ages and stages of life, from those who are parents, those who are empty-nesters, those who are single, from women and from men (well, mostly women….), from introverts and extroverts and those who are a little of both.   And I’ve thought about why it is….how did all these accomplished, organized, high-achieving folks come to these words?

I think that before The Great Upheaval, which is my label for the time in which we are living, we had figured out how to live our current life as best it could be lived.  Whatever the routine was, we had one.  However many activities in the day, from one to thirteen, we had a plan that worked.  It might have been a plan that was exhausting, or stressful, but it was a plan….we knew what to expect, we knew how to organize time and resources for it, and we were doing it at the highest level we could do it.

And then, within a few days, almost everything changed.  Work changed: many people started to work from home; some people continued to work at the same job in the same place, but with dramatic differences in the work site; some people were out of work altogether.  Child care and school changed, and parents who were trying to work from home, or still trying to go to work, were also trying to supervise children who were trying to learn online, or whose child care site had closed.  Grocery shopping changed.  Social destinations were shut down.  More meals were eaten at home.  Medical appointments morphed to telehealth.  And Zoom meetings/gatherings became a thing, followed shortly by Zoom bombing….and further Zoom security.  And every single one of you could add to this list, in fact, you’re probably doing so right now.

So for the first couple of weeks, we all lived on adrenaline, that rush that says, “I can do this!”  We thought to ourselves, this is only for a short time, and I can do anything for a couple of weeks.  And then, when it became clear it’s not for a short time, and the adrenaline levels returned to a more normal level, because you can’t live on adrenaline forever, those articles and advice columns that said we could use this time to write, to compose, to create a new brand, to start a new fitness plan, to clean out 30 years of accumulated books and photos, and for our own personal to-do list of projects we always wanted to do if we just had the time….that all just seemed like a really diabolical practical joke.  Not only could I not do all, or any, of that, I couldn’t figure out what day of the week it was, and where I’d filed the last Zoom meeting invitation.

And then I remembered, the implementation dip.  Those of you in LPS will remember that Michael Fullan, who I believe is the best researcher on change theory and leading change, described a very real part of change in any organization, or any person’s life, and that is the implementation dip.  Simply said, when any change is undertaken, performance immediately following the implementation of that change will be less than performance right before the change.  That’s because the system before change is functioning as well as it can in the current system.  And as people learn new skills, new habits, new ways of acting and being, they won’t be as effective immediately as they were with the old habits and skills.  (And cheers here to the doctors and nurses and respiratory therapists who are learning new practices every day, practices that have been revised from the day before; their learning is literally a matter of life and death for their patients, and for all of us.) 

Fullan’s research is in schools and hospitals and businesses, and he studied those big changes that were carefully planned, that included significant training before implementation, that were based on field tests and pilot studies – and even with all that in place, there would still be a time period when performance would dip.  We, of course, had none of the advance work….we didn’t have months or weeks to plan our new lives, we didn’t have training for this, there were no field tests or pilot studies, except for what was happening in other parts of the world, which we tended to ignore, because we thought it couldn’t possibly happen here.  

But it did…and here we are, in the midst of The Great Upheaval and a subsequent implementation dip.  And in addition to not having time to prepare, nor a map of what this new normal might look like, we’re also always aware of the lurking danger of this disease, worried that it will strike ourselves or those we love.  And the rules keep changing....groups of 250 to 50, to 10.  Masks aren't necessary; everybody wear a mask.  That's because new information is being discovered practically every day about this new disease.  So of course we’re not as productive, nor efficient, nor is it likely I will complete my own early-on list of projects; for the moment, I’m proud of having cleaned out the pantry.  Hardly something to put in the Christmas letter, but it may be the best I’ll have….

There aren’t any do-overs on this.  We can’t go back to January and say to ourselves,  “I think life is really going to change in a few weeks, and I’ll start now to be ready.”  So we have what we have.  I’m beginning to re-define what “good” looks like for this time in The Great Upheaval, and it’s not checking off projects.  It’s staying healthy, staying in touch with those I love, and supporting people and organizations that are filling in the many huge cracks in society, building safety nets as they go.

Another key part of Fullan’s research speaks to what leaders do when people are in the implementation dip; they constantly remind people of the why.  Why are we doing this?  What’s the reason for this?  What will be the outcome?  How will life be better?  And the why for this is pretty is simple.  We are in the midst of a pandemic, of a disease that is highly contagious, with a high mortality rate, and with no vaccine and no therapeutic treatment.  We can hope, we can pray, and we can take action….and most of us are probably doing all three.

When I wrote five weeks ago, there had been 58 deaths in the United States from Covid-19.  Tonight, there have been 35,443.  In five weeks time.  We are staying home, figuring out new ways to meet basic needs, to contribute our efforts to keep that number from growing exponentially higher in the next five weeks.  We can view that act of staying home as an act of fear, fear that we will get sick, or an act of faith, faith that we’re part of an effort that’s bigger than any single person or institution.  I choose to see it as an act of faith, faith in scientists, in health care providers, in those essential workers that make staying home possible for so many, and in our collected, connected community.

And when this is over, and someday it will be over, my hope is best expressed in what I heard Mary Pipher, one of the world’s wise women, say she told her ten-year-old grandson.  She told him that when he remembered these days in the future, she wanted him to remember how strong he was.  That’s what I want us to remember, too….how strong we were.