Depending on where you live, you’re entering week 4 of the COVID-19 pandemic. Or week 5. Or week 6. Or week ?? We all know one thing though: It’s already gone on longer than we wish it would. Here in Washington State, we’re entering week 4 of Gov. Jay Inslee’s “Stay Home, Stay Healthy” order, implemented on March 23. We’ll be staying at home and staying healthy for another three weeks, until May 4. At least.
This is a strange existence where normal measurements of success are inverted. We don’t brag about how much we do, we brag about how little: In the interest of preventing spread of COVID-19, we’re doing less and less, and being praised for it! So we stay at home, shelter at home, stay safe at home. Our greatest accomplishment seems to be in doing…nothing. We watch and listen for new developments. We applaud those who are actually risking their lives to rescue or treat the victims of the pandemic. We question the actions of all levels of response, we speculate about the cause, the spread or the outcome of the coronavirus. But mostly we wait. We endure this strange assignment of inaction. We endure for days or weeks, wondering how many months before ‘normal’. The day will come when we poke our noses out like groundhogs, hoping we aren’t startled for another six weeks by our shadow!
But not all of us wait. Some respond. Cities, Counties and States have a responsibility to ensure the safety of their residents. In a crisis virtually every jurisdiction implements Incident Command or Unified Command to provide this protection. For COVID-19, we’ve all activated and begun to do what we have all been trained to do: Organize a physical response to protect our citizens from this threat. We’ve all practiced participating in Incident Command or Unified Command. Many of us have participated in actual responses. Depending on where we live, we’ve exercised against known threats to be sure we’re ready for ‘the real one’.
Well, here it is, the ‘Real One’. Just not the ‘Real One’ most of us thought we’d face. I write Crisis Communication Plans for a living, and I confess that my plans were far lighter on the unique communication challenges of pandemic response than they should have been, certainly far lighter than future ones will be. The irony is that looking at a pandemic from the middle of one reveals that I should have done more, as I certainly could have known more. I could have predicted the unique challenges of pandemic response and done much more to prepare my clients for the strange and special world of pandemic response.
What could I have predicted? What could I have prepared my clients for? In one word, I could have prepared my Clients to endure.
The greatest need for COVID-19 responders is endurance. Why?
This response is longer than most responses
Most of us are ready for a ‘sprint’ response, not a ‘marathon’ response. We’re ready for the hurricane or tornado, the oil spill, fire or explosion. We’re ready for a Super Bowl, a WHO meeting, a terrorist attack. We’re ready for demonstrations, power outages, floods. For most, we race into Incident Command, sprint through a few operational periods, rotate from response to recovery, declare victory and go home — usually within a few days, certainly within a month. And if it goes longer we bring in reinforcements, rotate out for home and the response continues. It isn’t happening here. COVID-19 is a marathon. Most of us have been responding for a month by now, and we’re all trying to figure out when we demobilize Incident Command. We don’t know ‘when’: What we do know is ‘not yet’. Certainly not while we’re working with the healthcare system to keep people alive. Not while we’re trying to keep people home. Not while we’re coordinating delivery of services or ensuring against shortages. COVID-19 continues and the response continues. Week 1 becomes week 4, becomes week 7. Here’s a hint: If your Incident Command area of responsibility includes a school district, you’ll be in response until schools reopen.
So it’s a marathon, we’ll be ok. We’ll rotate people in and out. Really? This leads us to…
There’s nobody to replace you
There’s an old play on worlds; ‘No man is an island, but Eugene is a city in Oregon’. Well, every jurisdiction is an island in COVID-19. There are no reinforcements from cities near you. There are no trained teams to parachute in to your disaster. We are ALL in this disaster, in our own spheres. You are already out of people: what are you going to do when you run out of steam? What happens when your team starts to fall apart?
You’re going to get tired, and you’re going to get scared
One of Notre Dame football coach Vince Lombardi’s famous quotes is; ‘Fatigue makes cowards of us all’. For him it was a mantra to encourage training regimens to build endurance in his players. He recognized that the greatest impact of fatigue is fear; football games are won with one more hit. Responses are won with one more day, one more decision. But the sheer longevity of this crisis, and the length of time each of us will be involved, can lead us to bad decisions. We will be tired and we will be tempted to take the easy way out. We will miss important opportunities to do the right thing.
Survival mode will lead to bad decisions
Good decision making is a challenge when we’re fresh and focused. Incident Command is designed to preserve good decision making by allowing individuals to do what they do best, in a supportive environment of other professionals. Yet the length and pressure of this response combined with our fear and fatigue will leach our effectiveness away. We will enter into our organizational or personal survival mode, and our decisions will change. We will forget what’s good for all, and instead focus on what’s good for us. We will focus on the alligators instead of on draining the swamp. And our decisions will suffer.
We won’t adjust to the current reality
We’ll be like the lab rats, driving little cars but not getting Froot Loops. Seriously, that was a real experiment. Ongoing stress, pressure and fatigue lead us to defensive thinking; when under stress, we unconsciously want to do what worked in the past. So instead of recognizing the new, asymmetrical threats of this COVID-19 response and adapting our procedure and plans, we double down on what we were good at last time. And we waste scarce time and scarcer energy.
So how do mitigate these challenges to maximize our endurance?
Pace yourself
The current world record for a marathon is 2 hours, one minute and 31 seconds. Average speed for the winner? 4.65 Minutes per mile. The current world record for running one mile is 3.72 minutes. What do you think would happen if a runner tried to run a marathon at mile-record speed? They wouldn’t finish the marathon.
If you want to finish the COVID-19 race, or any other extended response, you need to settle in for the long run. Marathoners know how fast they need to run to finish. We need to do the same in our responses. Pace yourself.
Slow down
It seems counterintuitive, but you’ll get more done if you slow down. Plan your pace, then match your output to it. Don’t over-commit or over-react. As an example, instead of 24-hour operational periods, go to 48-hour, 72- hour or even 1-week ops periods. Every Ops period requires a round of ‘Planning P’ meetings. Save the time expended on the process by slowing the process down. You’ll have more time for more actions.
Pare down
Use your time wisely. Minimize what you have to do. Ruthlessly determine the best objectives and focus on them. Don’t just defer all the other good objectives; eliminate them. If you find time and energy later, add back the ‘good,’ but be sure you’ve energy for the ‘best’ first.
Schedule down
24-hour shifts look heroic, but they fizzle fast. Protect yourself by protecting your schedule. You’re here for the long run. Of course this means setting attainable timelines for work that has to be done.
Settle down
Remind yourself that you’re in the race to finish. Winning won’t be determined by you or your efforts. Finishing is what you have control over. Take a deep breath. Focus on the objectives you have and work through them. Avoid frenetic activity.
Rest up
When you rotate out from your shift, leave it behind. Go for a walk. Eat a good meal. Read a book. Sleep! Turn off the response. You need a break for the long run.
Build up
As you gain traction in your response actions, reevaluate response priorities again. Add in additional objectives that you know you can accomplish. Build steadily for increasingly effective outcomes.
Buckle up
Remind yourself that this will be a long and likely bumpy road. You will have successes but you’ll also have failures. Celebrate the successes and learn from the failures. Keep learning and adapting — you’ll be able to do this because you’ve avoided the fear of fatigue.
Journal up
Keep a written record of what works and what doesn’t. You’ll forget what you learn if you don’t keep track of it. Write down your successes and your failures so you can review them later. Write down what you’re learn NOW – don’t wait to learn later.
If you want to talk about this more, contact me, or add your comments below!