I think a lot of us are feeling a bit dislocated as we come back to work.

And for many it’s probably a rerun of the discombobulation (I just like the word) we had when we started lockdown. We were suddenly thrust into this unprecedented setting, and our brains slowly but surely adjusted to the reality of lockdown. If you remember, you probably felt the same at start of lockdown – home was very familiar, but there was a strangeness about what you were doing there. That eased as your brain got used to it, and then there was the dissonance towards the end of level 4 and into level 3 – productivity dropped off, kids got more distracted, patience with the whole thing got thinner.

I’ve just read an article from HBR called “If you feel like you’re regressing, you’re not alone”. They talk about the adrenaline of the first stage of lockdown – the emergency stage. That’s followed by regression, where people get tired, lose their sense of purpose, retreat to an emotional comfort zone. There is a real risk of staying there if you don’t take deliberate action.

So now we come back to the office and it’s pretty much exactly as we left it, except that the world is not the same, and we’re having to go through an adjustment process again. As long as we don’t have to revert to lockdown, we’ll adjust in the next week or so.

Which is a problem because obviously the world is different and getting differenter. News comes every day of huge layoffs and businesses closing their doors. While there is a high probability that we have repelled the health challenge, we’ve only just begun to address the economic and social challenge. The second and third order effects of layoffs, closures, border closures, travel constraints and physical constraints are unimaginable but will soon be real.

Here’s an example of what I mean from today’s news:

• Restaurants and bars in Europe are closed for weeks

• The stockpile of frozen fries grows rapidly and the price collapses

• NZ is swamped by cheap imports

• The potato industry here – already suffering from bar and restaurant closure – can’t compete

• Potato farmers switch to more economic crops

• The flow of imports stops as the stockpile eases

• Next year, you might not be able to get fries with that , or even worse, we may have to go without our fresh local Perlas, Agrias and Jersey Bennies! Of more concern, low income households, already most affected by job insecurity, face a hike in the cost of a food staple

As I say, I don’t think there will be great changes to the way we organize our work. But we will need to be able to move quickly so that we remain relevant to the complex changes in our world.

As Jack Welch said, “when the rate of change on the outside exceeds the rate of change on the inside, the end is near”. Once we’ve recombobulated ourselves, we need to be ready to be really nimble, which means rapidly moving our focus from protection of our inside world, to reengagement and action in the big world outside – customers, prospects, markets, competitors, suppliers and even wider society. That’s where the big changes are happening.

To continue the theme of the previous blog, it’s also where you can make a contribution because the world outside is where opportunities await. We may well be in what the Economist calls the 90% economy, and our physical world might be smaller while international travel is so constrained. But there will be winners from all this - those who make the most of it and stay deeply connected to their customers as they evolve.

Here are some suggestions from the HBR authors:

• Create energy by giving people new roles or even restructuring. Wearing a different hat can bring fresh perspectives

• Calibrate your and your team’s emotional state: you want to be 6-8 out of 10, alert and ready to act but not in panic

• Aim beyond business as usual, which is the piece about turning our minds to the world (stay tuned for my next blog in which I’ll talk about this in more detail)

And here’s a couple of my own suggestions:

• Make your contribution by buying local – we are still all in this together, and we need to maintain the discipline needed to get through

• Upskill your managers. They’re the ones who are going to have to lead change every single day. Talk to us about our Active Learning System