Don’t Return to Normal: Routinizing New Behaviors Learned from Disruption

Recently, I read a Facebook post that suggested weariness with the word “unprecedented.” Can I get a witness? It appears to be the en vogue word since perhaps 2016. This word suggests that the times we live in, what we’ve witnessed, the struggles we’ve been forced to endure, that within history (or at least immediate history) no one has ever navigated these waters. They are unchartered. If you too are weary of “unprecedented,” perhaps you might at least agree that these are “remarkable” times.

Regardless of your adjective, the moment we find ourselves has collectively forced us, individually, families, neighborhoods, communities, organizations, churches, corporations to reckon with disruption, to evaluate, assess, and adapt in ways that months prior would have seemed far-fetched and unnecessary.

And we don’t like it. Who would?

Outside of the traumatic toll of this growing pandemic, the loss of life, the fear of death, and shrinking of resources, everything has changed. Nothing seems the same. Activities that we once would have taken for granted seem foreign to us. As humans, we prefer stasis over seismic shifts, equilibrium over and against disruption. We should. Life seems to work better when the world feels relatively certain, predictable, and at least nominally stable. We appear to flourish in seasons of equilibrium.

Though I am no fan of random and substantial change, I am also increasingly aware of the dangers of equilibrium (especially within organizations).

Equilibrium creates comfort. Comfort breeds Apathy. Apathy leads to Atrophy. Atrophy weakens an organization’s capacity for adaptability and innovation.

Our longing to exist in equilibrium means that we typically build systems and organizations that seek to sustain stability and stave off disruption. The harder we work to insulate ourselves from disruption, the more bureaucratic, top-heavy, capital-intensive our systems and institutions become. We develop a “taken for granted” mode of operation, unquestioned, increasingly outdated, unwittingly self-sabotaging, and often unable to meet the challenges of subtle shifts, let alone major change.

The more insulated we believe we are, the more comfortable we become.

And then...Then a radical disruption, unexpected, unavoidable, and outside the control of the organization tosses the organization into a situation where all held dear is now called into question. Please understand many organizations will simply attempt to wait out the disruption. Many organizations will hunker down and hope the storm blows over leaving them to return to business as usual.

However, for other organizations, disruptive moments become catalysts for a creative change of operations, perhaps rarely possible in seasons of equilibrium. Disruptions force organizations to assess, to adjust, and to innovate. Creativity is fueled, often out of necessity, amid disruption. While many organizations hunker down, others will lean courageously and faithfully into the prevailing winds, recognizing the risks they face, but understanding the greater risks of refusing to adapt. In seasons of disruptions, programs are evaluated, fat is trimmed, status quo is questioned, lessons are learned, and experiments are instituted.

Disruption bears a fruit that would have never bloomed in seasons of equilibrium.

I continually hear leaders say things like, “I would have never tried this prior to the crisis.” “Why haven’t I been doing this the whole time?” “How do I keep my people as engaged in the vision of the organization after this passes?” There is a recognition that amazing lessons are learned amid disruption.

But here’s the problem...Default.

Human beings and organizations have deeply embedded default systems. We have this pernicious tendency to “go back to what we know.” Once the disruptive season passes, once the storm blows by, no matter how adaptable, creative, and innovative we were, there is a tendency for organizations to return to their comfortable equilibrium, abandoning much of what was done during the crisis. There may be some cause for that. Perhaps what we’ve done in the past worked well in seasons of stability and the innovations were temporary adjustments to stave off the ill-effects of a crisis.

However, what if the lessons learned in disruption created discoveries, reallocation of resources, and new practices that ought not be easily forgotten or dismissed? What if the disruption was what was needed to shift the organization’s visionary imagination toward health, sustainability, and growth moving into the post-disruptive unchartered future?

If equilibrium is the draw, disruption a gift, and default the temptation then the “routinization of behavior” is the necessary mitigation against the lure of default and the abandonment of lessons learned.

This doesn’t just happen. We can’t, in the midst of crisis, innovate and simply hope that the lessons learned carry forward when the storm passes. Those lessons only translate into the ongoing activities of the organization if the organization begins to routinize behaviors by organizing institutional life and building systems and expectations that sustain those behaviors. Those lessons learned and practices implemented must be built into the fabric of the organization’s life. Without this intentionality there will be a drift to the default practices.

This means that beyond simply “getting through the crisis,” the leader’s responsibility is to have meaningful conversations with other leaders ensuring that each discovery is evaluated, implemented, and routinized through adapted (adaptive) systems and structures.

To conclude I would like to give a few short examples.

During seasons of disruption, gaps in impact, value-added, and expectations for staffing are exposed. During seasons of equilibrium the tendency is to over staff based on the assumed demands of maintaining status quo systems, often creating roles and finding people to fill those roles. Disruption forces us to ask questions not only about the people on the bus but about the types and numbers of seats on the bus. Is it possible that we have certain staff members that are so specialized in their tasks that they lack the capacity to add-value in disruptive and innovative experiments? Is the organization served better by those who have diverse skills and can train and equip others, delegating the work, versus those whose skill set is limited to a specialization? During disruption it may be necessary to begin to rewrite job descriptions, hold evaluations, receive input from the staff members, and reflect on the needs of the organization moving forward.

During seasons of disruption, organizations begin to evaluate how capital heavy the organization is. Those organizations that operate consistently at their max capacity on the revenue side of budget are more prone to crisis in the face of disruption because there is little leeway to operate when the revenue drops. Disruption often reveals that what we spend money on isn’t always necessary. We tighten up, cut waste, and trim fat. Unfortunately, the default is strong. When the money begins to flow, spending immediately increases. It may be during the disruption that the budget is evaluated and adjusted, not only to meet the needs of the crisis but to set a new trend moving through post-crisis season. By creating margin in a budget through the reduction of expenses, an organization is able to fuel value-added impact into community engagement and intentional connections with shareholders, both of which became a priority in the crisis.

Disruption, though painful, and in the case of the pandemic, utterly traumatic, often forces organizations into adaptive, creative, and innovative postures. Paradigm shifting lessons are often learned in the midst of disruption. However, to avoid the defaults of equilibrium, an organization must now begin to routinize new behaviors into the fabric of the organization’s life and systems to benefit from the opportunities provided by disruption.

What are you learning and what must you now routinize?