Anticipating a relational post COVID19 world.

I wrote the previous post less than a week ago. Around us the world is changing. This morning as the hard reality of the coronavirus epidemic hit us, my diary for the next three months was constantly changing as meetings and events were cancelled. Groups I work with are either closing down for a season or switching to online working. Of course I will not be alone in that. At the same time I read news that Amazon is requiring all staff to work overtime, and ultimately is recruiting 100,000 new staff in the US. Meanwhile traditional retail, already in crisis, is likely to collapse. The NHS is now conducting a large volume of its work on the phone or online. The jury will remain out on this for a while, but many are predicting that post COVID19 much of this will not change back to the status quo, that this crisis is the catalyst that will bring major sociological change.

Some of it will be good for sure. But whenever technology removes the human interface In this emerging world we will need to make relational proximity an absolute priority. And that will require some serious thinking. I mentioned in my previous post Michael Schluter’s work at the Jubilee Centre in Cambridge on relational proximity. Schluter looks at five dimensions of relationships that work. I’d suggest that thinking about these could be useful in helping us build a kinder and friendlier new world. And I’d suggest that the experience of the hardship of the next few months can help us lay strong foundations for that new world.

Commonality is about finding closeness of purpose despite our difference. In recent years more than ever our differences have pulled us apart. Facing a common challenge together can be incredibly unifying, We will need to move beyond that place to finding ways of resolving difference, but its a good start.

Conducting a relationship on equal terms, parity, not as victim or abuser, offender of offended, powerful or powerless is crucial if it is to work. Again crisis can be a leveler, and can be a good place for starting to address the issues that separate, vital for many new relationships to continue. Workign together against a common problem allows people who for too long have been separated to have real say and participation, and results in dignity and worth for the previously powerless.

Strong relationships are multidimensional, and involve seeing people in a variety of situations that bring depth of understanding. That can be described as multiplexity. Crises break down the boxes we live in, throw us together with people we rarely see outside of their box, and we emerge stronger at the end. The lasting value of that is found if we can keep that multiplexity in our relationships.

Continuity in a relationship gives it strength. Time and trust are inseparably linked. As we encounter changing and perhaps distressing situations and we show commitment to a relationship it changes in quality.

The final factor in a strong relationship is directness. Crisis throws us together, and can lead to closer and more direct working than many of us have ever experienced. It is relationships that help us pull through difficult situations. Prioritising those relationships that have brought people from different world together, maintaining that directness by continuing to get together when its all over, can make them very strong.

Neighbours helping each other when housebound . Very different people being thrown together as help keep the foodbank afloat. And just the knowledge that you are as in shock as i am. COVID19 will do that. Take the newness of a relationship, that opens up during this time to explore these dimensions.

And as your and my post COVID19 world emerges lets make sure we seek to build them into our lives and relationships. How and where will we work? How will we conduct meetings? Where will we shop? Will we keep that friendship with a neighbour that was so important in the midst of the epidemic? Just a few starter questions. There will be many more.