Make prudent business calls during a pandemic

One of the greatest challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic is the array of conflicting, ever-changing, sometimes mutually exclusive medical opinions. How do we make sense out of medical evidence that changes daily? How do we make sure to do what is right?

Maybe we don’t. Maybe the best we can do is to choose not what makes us right (because that is unclear) but that which keeps us in right relationship.

Business owners have to make decisions in such an environment every day. The same general principles, grounded in science, that facilitate decisions in the economic realm also help in applying the science of COVID to business decisions:

Decisions best serve employees and customers by prioritizing the needs of the vulnerable, even as business needs are met. For Christians, this is always a top priority. A pandemic doesn’t change that. Take time to articulate who is affected and how.

“What if this information is wrong?” In an environment of extreme uncertainty, it is even more important to assess what happens if the information on which actions are based is incorrect. This requires advisors with different expertise and perspectives. Being wrong about the effectiveness of requiring masks, for example, will have a very different downside risk (little more than inconvenience for wearing one) than being wrong about the necessity of shutting down an enterprise for several months (loss of income, personal isolation, increased mental health problems, or increase in spread of infections).

Make certain to understand the factors that make a difference from a medical perspective, as they will undergird everything else. Going to a big-box store for groceries or supplies presents a very different infection risk than does sitting in a movie theater for an extended period. It’s epidemiologically reasonable to treat them differently. Understand why in order to understand what mitigating policies are needed.

Explain decisions in relational terms when possible, and admit legitimate uncertainty. Employees who see wearing a mask in the context of protecting others and promoting continued employment by keeping the business open may be more compliant than those who see it as government overreach.

Work with what is possible, and encourage others to do so. This limits recreational outrage, redirects energy, and focuses productive efforts. There’s not much use in arguing about what “should” happen.

Adjust as new information comes out, explaining changes required by new information. “Science on the run” is confusing, and things change quickly. To review and analyze what changes, what remains the same, and how these factors affect business, leaders need reliable and well-credentialed sources of information: consultants who are able to admit their own errors and biases and who can explain complicated ideas in layman’s terms.

BARBARA GOLDER, M.D., J.D., editor of Linacre Quarterly, has served as medical examiner, hospital pathologist, healthcare attorney, and as director of medical quality assurance for a Fortune 500 insurance company.