‘15 Days to Slow the Spread’: Covid‐19 and Collective Resilience

• Published date: 01 January 2021
• Date: 01 January 2021
• Author: Mary Ann Glynn
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/joms.12644

© 2020 Society for the Advancement of Management Studies and John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

‘15 Days to Slow the Spread’: Covid-19 and Collective

Resilience

Mary Ann Glynn

Boston College

Keywords: collective resilience, community, heroes, institutional trust, institutional mistrust

On 16 March 2020, approximately two months after the first US case of COVID-19 was

reported (21 January 2020); the White House issued a behavioural directive to slow the

spread of the coronavirus: ‘15 days to slow the spread’. Seventeen days later, on 2 April

2020, a new directive commanded: ‘30 days to slow the spread’. Two issues are implicit

in these dual directives. First, the mandate for social distancing tears at the social fabric

that affords people support and comfort in distressing times: ‘Throughout human history,

people have generated almost all of their solidarity face-to-face, by physical co-presence.

This has been disrupted’ (Collins, 2020, p. 1). Second, the goal post was moving further

and further out, 15 days became 30 days, and now, indefinite, pushing the resolution of

the crisis into an indeterminate future, raising the anguish of a never-ending pandemic.

The still-raging coronavirus has had widespread and negative impact. Yet, surprisingly,

in the midst of this misery, we see the emergence of signs of positivity, optimism, and

resilience. Since March 2020, business publications, such as the Har vard Business Review,

have published articles that encourage building resilience in individuals, teams, leaders,

and businesses. Businesses, such as the professional services firm Deloitte (on their web-

site), similarly urges ‘Combating COVID-19 with Resilience … calling for both empathy

and action to guide your people and businesses through uncertain times’. This focus on

the positive appears to contrast with conventional wisdom indicating that, in the face

of threat, people tend to experience rigidity. Exploring the flowering of such collective

resilience, when it is perhaps most unlikely to bloom, is the focus of my essay. Here, I

use ‘collective’ in the sociological sense to refer to a relatively large group of people that

share a sense of common interests or identity and that transcends the individual level of

Journal of Man agement Studi es 58:1 Ja nuary 2021

doi:10. 1111/j om s.1 26 44

Address for reprints: Mary Ann Glynn, Boston College, 140 Commonwealth Avenue, Chestnut Hill, MA

02467-3809, USA (maryann.glynn@bc.edu).