What good can we make of the #coronavirus crisis? The current Coronavirus pandemic bears eerie similarities to the Jewish biblical story of Passover. We wait in fear and preparation for this harbinger of sickness and potential death to pass over our society and world. It reminds us of how vulnerable we really are. In my early career I was asked to be part of a consulting team of 3 to help save 2 divisions of a major US energy company from closing effecting 6k workers and families. Daunted by our task we knew the organizational structures would be too slow to respond. We organized a grassroots effort based on 3 questions:
What do you care about in your personal life and what do you need to change?
What do you care about in your work life and what different commitments do you need to make?
What do you care about in your community/ society and what must you do better? Thousands of people in teams worked on these questions. The resulting-outcomes and initiatives made their divisions and workers whole!! Today, with prudent medical and technical preparation as we hunker down in this crisis, these questions while not an answer may have a place in making and keeping us whole as we live through this”Passover experience” of global disruption. Our deepest values anchor us in adversity.
Passover Experience
