Navigating through the COVID-19 crisis has allowed plenty of underused words to push themselves forward and become prominent in day to day language. “Black Swan (event)”, "Bifurcation", “New Normal” “Resilience” and “Transformative” are some of the terms which in the last six months seems to be gaining on their co-word buddies.

The change represents a rapid morphing of our language so that we can best communicate in the pandemic era.

Business leaders are now bombarded with a lot in print about what we all should be doing now and predicting the shape of the next phase of business.

A recent piece from McKinsey, “Beyond Coronavirus: The path to the next normal” (March 2020) proposes five R’s as a framework to consider suitable priorities and focus points. The five R’s are Resolve, Resilience, Return, Re-imagination and Reform.

While this McKinsey piece focused on higher-level government and country infrastructure issues, the five R’s also provides a useful framework for small business owners to leverage as they navigate and plan their business for a rapidly evolving paradigm.