Two major stories emerged from last week’s White House coronavirus briefings. The first chronicled President Trump’s attempts to preempt governors’ decision-making authority for lifting stay-at-home restrictions. The governors (and Constitution) won the argument, though Trump countered with a storm of tweets to stoke local political pressure for more rapid “liberation.”
Meanwhile, another set of headlines: the president’s Task Force issued new guidelines for “Opening America.” Mr. Trump had promised a major plan developed by some 200 leaders from across America, to support his vision for taking the nation back to work: but the guidelines—a simple framework of “gated phases” — were a far cry from that. Less detailed than existing FEMA and CDC plans, these guidelines also punted on scaling up testing, linking results to specific actions, how to pay for the implied operations, or explaining how phases might evolve as new information and techniques come on stream.
Shifting The Spotlight
But these thinnish guidelines may be more “feature than bug.” The framework’s vague simplicity affirms the president’s concession to let governors decide when to end the business and social shutdowns. More important, the spotlight now shifts to a more promising resource for inventing our post-Corona lives—the emerging network of front-line local leaders, state officials, medical practitioners, researchers, business owners and everyday citizens. Right now, growing numbers of people, in the best American tradition, are pragmatically solving multiple problems spawned by the pandemic. As they increasingly collaborate across boundaries, they are implicitly evolving a regionally-tailored set of plans for “a new normal.”
We’re looking at the best bet for successfully navigating a phase II Corona transition.
How should we support such a network?
Hedging The Bet
First, acknowledge that people do need to get back to work. Federal relief dollars will only flow so long, and full-on shelter-in-place policies cannot be sustained endlessly. Essential questions are not “whether?” and “why?” to reopen, but “when?” and “how?” And “with what kind of regional and situational differences?” Let’s trust the network to figure that out.
Next, abandon political forensics about past blame. We can’t invent the new normal via a zero-sum trench war of freedom warriors vs scientifically-cautious officials. Reopening will demand difficult choices for everyone—with differential risks and sacrifices, including some resurgent death rates. Proven therapies and vaccines still remain in the unknowable future.
Abandon also the politically convenient axiom that “no one must choose between saving lives and freeing the economy.” Reopening America hinges on exactly such choices. Embrace the problem-solving network to accelerate innovation, to manage the inherent trade-offs. The network must also forge democratic consensus for action plans and schedules for different populations across communities.
Principles For Network Effectiveness
Betting on the network calls for all of us to do more: to participate in its work where we can, and to press elected officials to make collaborative connections more effective. A few principles drawn from large-scale organizational learning can guide us:
1. Keep extending the network and developing trust. The bigger the network, the richer the potential for breakthrough solutions. But scale without trust fast erodes progress. Trust is not about liking other people—it comes from shoulder-to-shoulder work together, on common challenges, without ego or ulterior motives.
Good news, we can build on network growth underway. The National Governors Association (chaired by Republican Larry Hogan and Vice-Chair Democrat Andrew Cuomo) has been developing a knowledge-sharing exchange for coronavirus action, spawning state to state collaborations and shaping a clearer partnership with the federal government. Two local sub-groups have also formed, one among six eastern states and another of California, Oregon, and Washington, each developing regionalized approaches to re-opening their economies. As other communities also develop plans, expect to see more “living experiments”: how to re-imagine, restructure, and creatively balance risk and reward of a new normal, in schools, businesses, and public gatherings, across different parts of the country.
Add also the increasing innovation from private sector contributors . Thousands of small and larger businesses are developing faster, cheaper approaches to manufacturing masks, testing solutions, vaccines, as well as new ways to deliver consumer products and services more safely to consumers. Entrepreneurial non-profits and corporate philanthropies are also providing creative forms of support, with food banks, equipment donations, new forms of medical delivery, etc.
2. As the network grows, build shared purpose and performance goals. Once connections reach critical mass, mobilize a shared vision of success: “why are we working together, and how do we know if we are winning or losing?” More measurement of success and failure will also help clarify what processes should remain local and which must be national.
3. Develop a culture of transparency: Honest reporting of successes and challenges of performance strengthens trust. So does non-politicized analysis about why certain strategies make progress, and how transferable they are across different contexts. In general, we need less “gotcha” and “sympathy” journalism, and more analytical case studies.Finally, to repeat the now urgent chorus, more testing, testing, testing—and tracking too, so we can more dynamically adjust to ever-changing threats of the disease.
4. Empower the network to keep learning, but also to shape support from the Federal government. Experiments, lessons learned and knowledge-building are most powerfully done at the front-line—in the states, in hospitals, in businesses, in communities, in businesses, as they all wrestle with balancing risk and opportunity. But networks also need the right kind of support from a “central platform”—not top- down control, but enabling coordination.
State governors must therefore keep finding ways to forge cooperation with the Trump administration. That begins by affirming the positive contributions from the federal government—specialized medical and scientific research, funding and sourcing materials (especially foreign). But governors must also keep pushing for win-win collaborations between state and federal, where both sides must do their part: development of technical and medical standards; rationalizing purchase and allocation of supplies; collecting and communicating best practices from across the nation.
5. Create non-bureaucratic shared governance. A large network—of state, local and Federal officials, non-profit and corporate leaders, entrepreneurs, scientists, et al., — must clarify how it governs itself, without becoming a sluggish bureaucracy, or defaulting to free-wheeling survival of the fittest. A simple governance model can be built by working together to classify who owns different decisions for reopening the economy, and related protocols for what members must be consulted, informed, or encouraged to act independently.6. Celebrate collaborative excellence and challenge failing performance—for the greater good. Every one trying to get us through this mess together must learn how to accentuate the positive while also holding each other accountable for excellence. That means honest assessment of problems and how to fix them, without resorting to accusations that are personal. COVID-19 virus is about as impersonal as anything on earth—and it’s deadly effective. There’s a lesson here for everyone now fighting it.
Originally published on Forbes.com