By Jason Lim
An Economist article titled, "Closing the world's schools caused children great harm," made the point that governments around the world closed schools for two-thirds of the school year due to the pandemic, even though the probability of a child between the ages of 5 to 14 years old dying from COVID-19 was only one in 500,000. The implication is that governments made a hasty decision that unnecessarily took educational opportunities away from children.
Talk about Monday morning quarterbacking… COVID-19 is the only pandemic in more than a century, which means that practically no one currently alive ever had the experience of living through one before. Even if someone did, the socioeconomic norms that tacitly govern today's societies would be unrecognizable compared to those of 1918, when the Spanish flu killed over 50 million around the world.
Therefore, anyone in a position of authority who had to make a decision that could literally impact the life and death of millions upon millions of people had to make that decision as one of the biggest unknowns in history. Just the fact that some public officials were willing to be visible and make decisions amid such ambiguity speaks to their courage.
They knew that they would be second-guessed from the moment they made these decisions. They knew that they would be held accountable after the fact based on the efficacy of their decisions. They knew that the people hurt by their decisions would always hold that against them. They knew they would be vilified or, even worse, deified by those whose selfish agendas happened to line up against or with their decisions.
As the advanced countries of the world start re-emerging from the depths of the pandemic, what's intriguing is how different leaders, systems and nations made decisions during one of the most uncertain times we have faced in the modern era. Not only was COVID-19 a once-in-a-century event, but it was also a worldwide event that happened in real time basically everywhere at the same time.
These days, the speed and global reach of communications are unprecedented. The only thing faster than the virus was the flow of information about it, as well as the rumors about it that metastasized and breached any government's ability to control them.
So, how did this unprecedented ambiguity, combined with the equally unmatched speed and breadth of the flow of information, shape decision-making by the world's leaders? Did the first-mover ― in this case, China ― impact how the rest of the world decided they were affected? Remember all the early criticism against the Chinese government for locking down Wuhan in the early months of 2020, along with the videos of those prisoned inside their homes pleading for help? How did China's response impact what other countries did after the virus got to them?
What about all the praise that South Korea received in the early months of the pandemic, when it was judged to have successfully balanced between pandemic control and civil rights? How accurate was that assessment? Further, how did all the celebratory noise around South Korea affect the decision-making of other countries?
Early on in the pandemic, I remember many people in the U.S. ― from media to politicians ― bringing up South Korea as a case in point in order to criticize the Trump administration's handling of the pandemic. The most common refrain I heard was that both the U.S. and South Korea had diagnosed their first COVID-19 patient on the same day, but look what happened afterwards. How did this comparison ― fair or not ― impact how the Trump White House approached pandemic policymaking?
The Economist article also writes, "Worse, many governments have kept schools shut even as bars and restaurants open, either to appease teachers' unions, whose members get paid whether they teach in person or not, or to placate nervous parents."
This statement is laughable. It's almost as if the author believes that policymaking is a perfect science that happens in a vacuum filled with perfect and complete information, but devoid of people who have a stake in those decisions. Appeasing different groups and placating others are essential elements of making decisions in the public arena. We don't live on some kind of "Planet Vulcan," where people are perfectly rational and where there are no identity politics.
In fact, when faced with an existential threat, people will retreat into their instinctive identity affiliations and fight for the survival of their tribe. No wonder that, according to the Pew Research Center, "About six-in-ten report that national divisions have worsened since the outbreak began. In 12 of 13 countries surveyed in both 2020 and 2021, feelings of division have increased significantly, in some cases by more than 30 percentage points."
What has gone into making these life-or-death decisions amid unprecedented ambiguity in today's inescapable fishbowl, filled with 24/7 social media and cable news? Who were the most successful decision-makers and why? In an overwhelmingly interconnected world, how did the leaders make decisions that were localized? The answers to these questions will be among the most important lessons learned from the COVID-19 era.
Jason Lim (jasonlim@msn.com) is a Washington, D.C.-based expert on innovation, leadership and organizational culture.
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Talk about Monday morning quarterbacking… COVID-19 is the only pandemic in more than a century, which means that practically no one currently alive ever had the experience of living through one before. Even if someone did, the socioeconomic norms that tacitly govern today's societies would be unrecognizable compared to those of 1918, when the Spanish flu killed over 50 million around the world.
Therefore, anyone in a position of authority who had to make a decision that could literally impact the life and death of millions upon millions of people had to make that decision as one of the biggest unknowns in history. Just the fact that some public officials were willing to be visible and make decisions amid such ambiguity speaks to their courage.
They knew that they would be second-guessed from the moment they made these decisions. They knew that they would be held accountable after the fact based on the efficacy of their decisions. They knew that the people hurt by their decisions would always hold that against them. They knew they would be vilified or, even worse, deified by those whose selfish agendas happened to line up against or with their decisions.
As the advanced countries of the world start re-emerging from the depths of the pandemic, what's intriguing is how different leaders, systems and nations made decisions during one of the most uncertain times we have faced in the modern era. Not only was COVID-19 a once-in-a-century event, but it was also a worldwide event that happened in real time basically everywhere at the same time.
These days, the speed and global reach of communications are unprecedented. The only thing faster than the virus was the flow of information about it, as well as the rumors about it that metastasized and breached any government's ability to control them.
So, how did this unprecedented ambiguity, combined with the equally unmatched speed and breadth of the flow of information, shape decision-making by the world's leaders? Did the first-mover ― in this case, China ― impact how the rest of the world decided they were affected? Remember all the early criticism against the Chinese government for locking down Wuhan in the early months of 2020, along with the videos of those prisoned inside their homes pleading for help? How did China's response impact what other countries did after the virus got to them?
What about all the praise that South Korea received in the early months of the pandemic, when it was judged to have successfully balanced between pandemic control and civil rights? How accurate was that assessment? Further, how did all the celebratory noise around South Korea affect the decision-making of other countries?
Early on in the pandemic, I remember many people in the U.S. ― from media to politicians ― bringing up South Korea as a case in point in order to criticize the Trump administration's handling of the pandemic. The most common refrain I heard was that both the U.S. and South Korea had diagnosed their first COVID-19 patient on the same day, but look what happened afterwards. How did this comparison ― fair or not ― impact how the Trump White House approached pandemic policymaking?
The Economist article also writes, "Worse, many governments have kept schools shut even as bars and restaurants open, either to appease teachers' unions, whose members get paid whether they teach in person or not, or to placate nervous parents."
This statement is laughable. It's almost as if the author believes that policymaking is a perfect science that happens in a vacuum filled with perfect and complete information, but devoid of people who have a stake in those decisions. Appeasing different groups and placating others are essential elements of making decisions in the public arena. We don't live on some kind of "Planet Vulcan," where people are perfectly rational and where there are no identity politics.
In fact, when faced with an existential threat, people will retreat into their instinctive identity affiliations and fight for the survival of their tribe. No wonder that, according to the Pew Research Center, "About six-in-ten report that national divisions have worsened since the outbreak began. In 12 of 13 countries surveyed in both 2020 and 2021, feelings of division have increased significantly, in some cases by more than 30 percentage points."
What has gone into making these life-or-death decisions amid unprecedented ambiguity in today's inescapable fishbowl, filled with 24/7 social media and cable news? Who were the most successful decision-makers and why? In an overwhelmingly interconnected world, how did the leaders make decisions that were localized? The answers to these questions will be among the most important lessons learned from the COVID-19 era.
Jason Lim (jasonlim@msn.com) is a Washington, D.C.-based expert on innovation, leadership and organizational culture.
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