It's official, I've already served a year of confinement, homework, home office, remote connections and abrupt changes. I imagine many persons around the world share my condition. Overnight, without warning, the world as we knew it, changed. We took on resilience, empathy and started making a living out of doing a lot with little. Similarly, we have seen organizations and people camp the storm, struggle with very diverse results: some have sunk, others have the level of water to their necks and we also find examples of corporations, entrepreneurship projects and staff who have been able to seize opportunities and have grown thanks to new market conditions. Wasn't it in the midst of this pandemic that Jeff Bezos broke the barrier and became the world's first billionaire?

In this year of lockdown and confinement, we have learned that professional exercise in a globalized world has to maximize its resources, innovate and also seek stability in turbulent times. In the midst of the hurricane, knots and pitfalls have to be tackled, as well as taking care of ourselves so as not to fall victim to exhaustion. The question that large corporations and small businesses plant are:

  • How do I understand this revolution?
  • What should I do to design stable models?
  • How should I change the structures of my corporation or project to live up to these in predictable times?

Difficult, there's no doubt about it. Answering these questions is like jumping into the streets of ancient Athens, as Diogenes did in his time. And like the Athenian sage, we must go after that virtue that can answer such questions. There are no easy answers and the recipes make us suspicious. But from the analysis we can deduce certain general guidelines that may be useful.

  • Understand the strategic decisions we are able to make. Not everything we think about is feasible or feasible. In turbulent times, the objectivity with which we measure our alternatives is crucial.
  • It is essential to identify by fatigue points of our organization. In stages of accelerated change, there will be team members who are energized and others who are truly exhausted and do not have to be dismissed their tiredness, we must promote that they rest and regain their energy.
  • Recognize what is the most deployed fortress we have and from there, rebuild the conditions with which we want to work. It's not a matter of getting carried away by the current, it's taking the helm and choosing where we're going to go.
  • We have to make forecasts about the climate that we are going to face: the same thing in the market, the industry, with our customers or in the work environment. It is essential to have a look of three hundred and sixty degrees to understand what our next movement should be.
  • Once we have made these forecasts, we must also provide a clear route that tells us how we are going to get around the turbulence. When we all know where we need to be and what needs to be done, the picture is clarified and fears and uncertainties diminished.

Yes, after a year of being home, working remotely, I have witnessed how many companies have collapsed and have not survived this time of devastation. However, I have also seen how there have been projects that flourished among the swings of this emergency. I am pleased to see that many young people have managed to take advantage of technological advances and that they have been able to use their creativity to turn around adversity.

Daxmakeup001 is the Instagram account of Dulce Alexandra Torreblanca Hernández, a student at college level who lives in Acapulco who in an entrepreneurial spirit knew the need for the market and has a thriving business in this situation. Javier Alejandro Jiménez Márquez founded Cryptic Development which is a Mexican company dedicated to software development and technological development. Javier saw that a window of opportunity was opened and has dedicated himself to solving the needs of so many users who require such services.

Michilopochtlioficial is the Instagram account of an endemic food restaurant that began these days, founded by Alejandro Rodríguez López and delivers. Matbet is an entrepreneurship project by Estefanía Damian Navarro —Fanny—a girl who has developed a seasonal ornaments business.

These examples, of centennials, that is, of boys who were born in this 21st century, who come treading hard tell us about the freshness we can expect from the new normality. It's not about looking at the stage, it's about seeing it, analyzing it, understanding it and putting it to work in our favor. You can, there are examples of that. This is the freshness we expect from the new normal, isn't it?