This title is not a tasteless trick to hook the reader. It's also not very original (it's a direct translation of an article published in The Atlantic). Nor is it a title I would ever have thought of using in an opinion piece until today ... but as I was writing this text, the World Health Organization (WHO) declared COVID-19 a pandemic.

These days the big question on most sales people's minds has been: Should I prospect and try to develop new business at such a sensitive time for my prospects?

Following the launch of the Global Talent Competitiveness Index 2020 (GTCI), which took place on 22 January at the Davos summit in Switzerland, and in partnership with Tata Communications and Insead, Adecco, a company specialised in outsourcing human resources and temporary work, highlighted the five trends in the world of work and puts forward some advice so that you know how to act on each of them.

This pandemic has different impacts from company to company. In this environment, the best approach to marketing communications depends on two factors: (1) whether your company remains operational; and (2) whether resources are available for advertising.

And suddenly, people, teams and organisations had to adapt! We all know how much adaptation costs. At different times in our lives adaptation has been present. Organisations have long created contingency plans to cope with sudden adaptation needs. Many of us have plans A and plans B, for an adaptation to career management situations, to family life management, even to dinner plans.

Covid-19 is a frightening anomaly. But it is more frightening than "anomaly". The norm, or the new normal, seems to be that of permanent epidemic threat: the World Health Organization tracked 1438 epidemics between 2011 and 2018. Hyper-urbanisation and climate change make pandemics and other ecological hazards more pressing. It is therefore important that we collectively prepare for this reality - to which organisations, including business ones, will naturally continue to be subjected. The optimism that developed after the previous crisis was "overcome" is now being overcome by the pessimism that comes from another crisis, this one perhaps more worrying for our existence.