Must We Return to “Normal”?

No one would have asked to experience the crisis we’re enduring now. The human cost is beyond horrible to contemplate, and I don’t want for a moment to suggest there is a silver lining to COVID-19 that will outweigh its toll.

I do wonder, though, what life will look like on the other side. What’s “normality” going to be like? Will we return to “business as usual”? Do we want to?

Recent decades have brought a raft of scientific and technological wonders. From AI, nanotechnology and 3D printers to advanced knowledge of the human body and even outer space – to name a few. And yet, for all that promise, we also have seen how individualistic this modern way of life can be, and how often we find ourselves divided and disconnected from one another. We have magnificent tools within our reach – but we’ve often failed to harness this collective ingenuity to do better for all.

And so it has been tremendously heartening to see people, governments and businesses coming together during this crisis. Inspiration is everywhere and starts with simple things (no sophisticated technology needed here – just caring for one another): The U.S. newspaper deliverer who is keeping elderly customers on his route stocked up on groceries and other supplies. The hundreds of thousands of people who have volunteered to assist the National Health Service in the U.K. The counter-epidemic of “caremongering” that has sprung up in Canada.

It is with great pride and affection that I’ve been hearing reports of some of the things PMI employees have been doing to help their neighbors and communities during this crisis. Many have been volunteering to deliver food, medicine, and other essential supplies to the most vulnerable populations, including the elderly, immunocompromised, and poor. Others are chatting by phone and video with older people living alone in a bid to keep up their spirits and help them combat loneliness. None of this surprises me, but it makes me even more grateful for the wonderful women and men who make up our company.

Many other organizations, too, are tapping into this collective spirit—devoting their resources and ingenuity to meeting challenges well outside their usual remits. Who would have thought that Apple’s latest product wouldn’t be a smartphone but a face shield for healthcare professionals? What cosmetics company ever thought it would switch its factories over to making hand sanitizer? LVMH, L’Oréal, and Coty are all doing that (as are a growing number of distilleries). What clothing makers would have foreseen creating face masks instead? Textile factories in Spain, Italy, and China have made that change. Automakers building hospital ventilators? It’s happening at factories around the world.

It has been wonderful to see, too, how this pandemic is bringing the world’s scientists even closer together, working across borders, cultures, and languages. A recent article in the New York Times highlights how the scientific community is creating this global collaboration – which is unlike any in history, putting the greater good above personal enrichment and national divides.

When finally we reemerge from our homes and return to our workplaces after this pandemic, I hope we will avoid returning to “business as usual”—or even “life as usual.”

Don’t get me wrong. Like most of us, I’m looking forward to returning to concerts, restaurants, and gatherings with friends and extended family. Like most of us, I crave the normalcy of in-person meetings, of picking up a few grocery items on the way home from work and letting my children spend time with friends. What I am less eager to return to is the individualism, excessive competitiveness, and hyper-partisanship that has divided and held us back for too long.

Fortune’s CEO Initiative convened recently (virtually, needless to say) to discuss how businesses can best respond to the COVID-19 crisis. An email I received about it cited one CEO’s conclusion that we should not think of our eventual emergence from this pandemic as a “great restart” but as a “great reset.” Meeting participants saw in this crisis an opportunity to prioritize practical and speedy innovation over perfectionism and to find new ways to nurture community. I couldn’t agree more.

There is precedent for progress in industry and business following periods of crisis. Several enduring innovations that we take for granted today (think radars, mass production of penicillin, nylon) came to the fore during World War II. That same dark moment in our world’s history also brought us the Training Within Industry (TWI) program—conceived to increase industrial output in support of the Allied war effort—and later leveraged to help postwar Japan rebuild its industrial infrastructure, influencing the management philosophy we know today as “lean manufacturing.” And at present, these models are helping businesses across industries to pivot their operations away from their usual activities, focusing instead on supporting urgent healthcare needs.

In a short time, we have seen what we can achieve when we harness our collective will, creativity and resources and apply them to solving local and global challenges. How much more can we accomplish as businesses and as a society if we leave this virus behind but hold fast to our new attitudes and lessons learned—including the vital importance of collaboration, community, and caring? How much more can we accomplish if we resolve not to return to business as usual?