Hearing about State Governors wanting to reopen as early as this week, when less than 2% of the U.S. population has contracted COVID-19 seems like a disaster waiting to happen.  Especially since COVID-19 seems to have an R0 of 2.2-5.7 (i.e. for every person infected they infect 2-6 more people).  Has nothing been learned from the 1918 Spanish Flu Pandemic?

The government then wanted to get businesses up and running sooner rather than later, and reopened prematurely.  What happened?  Sep 28th, 1918 Liberty Parades were held across the country in an effort to boost morale for the war and also to sell bonds, despite the medical community warning to cancel the parades to prevent the spread of the flu.  One of these cities holding the parade was Philadelphia.  Two to three days later, the Spanish Flu exploded and within three weeks, 4,500 people had died in the city.  Versus St. Louis who listened to the medical community, never had a Liberty Parade, and kept up with social distancing.  The results can clearly be seen in the image below, St. Louis experienced a much lower death rate during this second wave of the pandemic.

As leaders and change agents, we have a choice when it comes to lessons learned.  We can take the time to review and incorporate lessons learned from the past which leads to time and cost savings for the organization.  Or we can move forward without ever reviewing lessons from the past.  The latter is a bit akin to operating with blinders on, is a good way for history to repeat itself, and for the organization to incur delays and additional costs.  The question is, what kind of leader and change agent are you choosing to be when it comes to lessons learned?  Are you doing all you can to learn from the past?

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About the Author: Rosanne Essiambre helps change agents and departments in one-on-one and group settings to be seen, be heard, and be effective in bringing about change in the organization and/or in their personal lives. She provides consulting and facilitation to organizations to improve communications and collaboration, smooth out the change / transformation journey, get to the root cause of an issue so it can be solved for good, improve processes, and implement successful lessons learned. And she conducts workshops, trains, and speaks on Energy Leadership, Emotional Intelligence, Resilience, Being a Change Agent and more. If you or your organization could use support with your change effort or some inspiration, contact Rosanne for a complimentary consultation. Rosanne is a Change Agent Coach, Facilitator, Six Sigma Black Belt, Change Management / Continuous Improvement Consultant, Speaker, and Energy Leadership Index Master Practitioner with more than 20 years experience working on a variety of transformations across a diverse set of industries both domestically and internationally, while continuously improving herself.