James H. Pearsall has been involved in the administration of the vocational training sector since the early 1970s, and in trade union movements and industrial relations
A new strategy envisaged for the new future is a special one as it must be built in a very particular context; it has to revive a nation after a catastrophic world-wide pandemic that gave everybody a body crush; has returned people to think the “back-to-basics” principle and respect the foundation of Time, Place and Person. This is crucial to understand as we can see in real time that every country from North to South and East and West has been dealing with this anarchical virus with ad-hoc solutions.
While we were calmly preparing how to build up our capabilities to face the new era of dealing with the Green and Digital Economy and the massive problems of climate change, we have been spun into a conundrum of fighting for our lives and livelihoods, at a level of trying to secure food or even a bed in an ambulance outside hospital.
So while it is human to react in a preventive manner to limit further damage and lose track of the normal course of life, we must remain proactive and allow ourselves enough planning for a brighter economy that should be People centric.
We must depart from the main ambition of economic growth for growth’s sake and focus ourselves onto economic development that provides us with wide-ranging and overarching prosperity while it continues to protect our lives, also through a robust and supportive health system. We must also be realistic that sustainability has to be our leading perspective as it is necessary that we evolve and do not continue to live by legacies.
The pandemic, which has taught us that the only constant is change, has given a new landscape how governments should be looked at from all sectors of society. We must be using the giraffe reconnaissance methodology of overlooking the whole spectrum, which scans over the diversity and inclusivity factors, recognise the gaps and prioritise on the solutions.
“We must reinvent a new operational model, on all spheres, even if we continue to respond effectively to the aftershocks of the crisis…”
Strategies
There must be a distinction between the necessary Crisis Team, which handles what is happening right now, until the pandemic is under control and the Strategy Team. We must reinvent a new operational model, on all spheres, even if we continue to respond effectively to the aftershocks of the crisis. This Crisis Team needs to operate in parallel to the Strategy Team, which being centrally placed within government, would be continually and solely focused on the economic development of the country in the next 10 years. This must be followed by the Plan Ahead team, which plans across all horizons simultaneously for the next 15 to 20 years.
The Strategy Team should aim at a new mind set of thinking what is “right” and not always what’s “next”. The team must aspire to strengthen the “confidence”; have a simple and user-friendly “communication” medium; adhere to quick decision-making in order to carry out any necessary “corrections” and finally be highly empathic to offer the essential much required “contribution”. This is the pragmatic way to create the next normal, which must throw away the traditional metrics which have become irrelevant.
The new roadmap must promote the balance between the Economic and Social sustainability given that social cohesion is already under pressure from populism. It is critically important that there must be a continuous mitigation re the resurgent risk to lives versus risk to the population health that could follow another sharp economic pullback.