In our first message the focus was on ways to support all of us in moving from uncertainty and complexity to clarity. When things are so overwhelming, as the last two years have been, simply offering clarity about those things we do know. As educators and coach leaders, we all know change begins with the first step. Let us all remember, also, that change begins first within and then spreads. As we enter the season of thankfulness and remembering those we love, even when it’s crazy hectic, do as the airline attendants tell us to do…. “Put the oxygen mask first on ourselves before we support others.” It’s a positive metaphor for making so many things certain and safe.

Recently one of our favorite authors and researchers, David Rock, offered another idea that can move us from complexity and chaos to clear and safe. David’s new concept is not getting “back to normal” like all is bad and out of our control, but building a “better normal.” Why a better normal? First, because so much of what was happening in organizations wasn’t working so well. And second, the most important, is that this crisis is opening what may be the most powerful opportunity of a lifetime to make major changes to how we work. While so much is still on pause, it is a great time to be open to reinvention. Leaders and employees are more willing to do things differently, take risks with new ideas, and truly make our workplaces and schools different than ever before.

At the NeuroLeadership Institute one Framework used has been different kinds of thinking, at different timelines, and levels of abstraction and complexity. So how do we build a better normal?

Stay okay day to day; Sustain the new pace of work; and Leverage the moment for the long term. These three strategies help ensure people are in the right frame of mind to accomplish daily tasks, maintain that energy week to week, and begin cultivating a new, lasting culture in the process. Let’s look closer.

Stay okay day to day

Change is highly disruptive and threatening in the brain. When we feel uncertain, helpless, and alone, our cognitive function suffers and we lose the ability to focus. It’s up to leaders to create buffers for themselves against threat, such as by creating routines and caps on news consumption, and send positive, threat-reducing signals to their team, through empathetic conversations and surprise doses of autonomy, as two examples.

Without this one-to-one focus on keeping people okay day to day, no one will be in the right frame of mind to execute on a mid or long-term vision.

Sustain the new pace of work

The NeuroLeadership Institute polled hundreds of talented leaders about the ways work has changed. In short, organizations are doing things in days they thought would take months, and with much more humanity than ever before. The data shows they also worry about keeping that magic around.

Leaders can make the most of virtual work, which has been shown to be both cheaper and more productive, by holding “speedy meetings,” where 30- and 60-minute meetings get turned into 25 and 50 minutes. They are finding new ways to give care to people’s cognitive capacity, which could mean new schedules that are more flexible and many new ways of responding to changing work situations for employees and parents.

Leverage the moment for the long term

Time is of the essence. Culturally, how leaders express—and commit to—their values will reverberate for years to come. And, practically, the motivation and energy surrounding this moment will eventually fade, and it will be that much harder later to shake people out of their old ways of working if leaders don’t make an investment now. Decide what’s important and rally your teams to commit to new possibilities. Organizations who take steps early to build rich, more caring cultures are in far better positions to succeed than keep on doing what they have always done.

Now is a great time to look at all the possibilities to keep making our organizations and schools better for all the precious humans within. Rather than seeing the past change as disruption, what if we reframe as a time for new ideas and structures. Let’s tap into people’s newfound energy to create something better than before for our kids, teachers, and parents. And, in doing so, David Rock says, we will be following the science.