We shouldn’t regard this disruption as an interlude before we see a return to normal. This is normal.
This change in the way we work isn’t exceptional except in the degree of change.
What’s normal in this century is change as the state of being, not stability. The world changes all the time. Adjustment must be continual. We had to make a big adjustment. We will go on continually changing how we work all the time. Hopefully not as much or as fast, but change will never let up.
There is no stable state of society or work, as implied in the term “new normal”. Change is the state. This is never going to stop. Life was always in a permanent state of flux, but the rate is going exponential. In the past, social change was slow enough that we could approximate it by step changes between stable states but that was always an illusion, which doesn’t work any more. Change is constant. The world is VUCA. We must adapt always.
(Adaptability stems from two capabilities: agility and resilience. )