4 Conversations & 4 Perspectives. Looking at the impact of Covid-19 now and taking a view on what ‘new normal’ may look like:
Internationally and across the UK companies are wrestling to understand how to adapt to the restrictions that Covid-19 is placing on their work forces. Most have moved their daily business operations online by using a wide range of video conferencing facilities. For this story, I interviewed 4 industry professionals to see how they and their organisations are adapting now and what they believe will change as the world edges slowly towards a ‘new normal’. My cast of 4 includes Shirin Dehghan (SD), Operating Partner at Frog Capital and Chairwoman of Opensignal, Damian Guilfoyle (DG), Head of Customer Team Vodafone at Nokia, Sarah H (SH), a top executive assistant at a leading international telecoms vendor and our own Advisory Partner, Gavin Devine (GD). Each brings a different perspective on the challenges and opportunities for management.
Let’s start with the view from the Board. I asked Shirin what she perceived to be some of the benefits of virtual working and in particular, how senior leadership team interaction was working.
So, Shirin, how has virtual working changed management interaction?
SD: ‘Of course Jim, prior to Covid, our senior leadership meetings held to discuss strategy - the meetings that I would get involved in as a board member, would happen in person in London. Now, like most other companies everything is fully digital. It has, I think, made it more efficient from my perspective as I don’t have to spend time travelling back and forth, but also I think it has put a level of discipline into the way we prepare for meetings. When you know you are going to meet people face-to-face, in a room, whilst you do of course prepare, you do have the advantage of being able to read the body language. There’s a lot of information you can gather when you are in same room with those people, especially when it is brainstorming or discussing strategy. On a video conferencing set up this is much trickier and it does mean that before you go into the meeting you have to do a lot more ‘pre-meeting’ thinking so that you can clearly and concisely communicate your ideas. This is good because you go into those sessions having done a lot more thinking and a lot more preparation. But honestly, I have to admit, that when it comes to true brainstorming sessions then it is still pretty hard when you are all using video conferencing.’
I wanted to ask Damian whether he recognised some of the challenges outlined by Shirin. Damian, with a long career in international sales leadership offered the following insights.
Damian, what has changed for you and your team, since lockdown?
DG: ‘On the one hand a lot has changed, but on the other hand not much. Clearly the face-to-face interaction with our customers has stopped entirely, but in terms of our daily teamwork, well, as you know the team is based across multiple geographies, so from that perspective we are very used to using conferencing tools to work and stay in touch. What has been a challenge is this: we, like many other companies, are used to structuring working process around specific customer engagements. We’ve been very good at pulling together matrix teams and then getting together in one country for face-to-face sessions, replicating that approach, virtually, has been quite a challenge and different people have been handling that in different ways. Some people are definitely struggling.’
Could you explain what you mean?
DG: ‘It’s human I think. You know yourself, having been in sales, that you’re used to having (face-to-face) interaction. What’s really important are the visual cues and you don’t get that much on video - it’s two dimensional. What’s more, people who have always worked in an ‘office environment’ are used to having people around them or having the customer just down the road - they’re not used to working this way - and that goes for some of our customers as well.‘
Do you think the ability to adapt to virtual working has any bearing on age or gender?
DG: ‘No, I really don’t. I genuinely think it’s simply down to personality type and how you have been used to working prior to Covid.’
During my conversations with both Shirin and Damian we had talked quite a lot about how virtual meetings had changed interaction and I was keen to go a little deeper on the subject.
So, Shirin, you touched upon how virtual engagement was helping efficiency, but from a management team perspective what else has changed?
SD: ‘Well, as I said there’s definitely been much more preparation, but also a lot more communication too as you’re not together in person any more - so the level of communication has increased significantly and not just with staff, but also with board members and investors. The ability to communicate precisely and concisely is very important when you are remote because people can’t pick up your body language especially when you have 7 or 8 people on a call - it makes it a little bit trickier. Another thing that we have found is that ‘open communication’ is very important.’
When you say ‘open communication’ do you mean in general or just at the SLT level?
SD: ‘No, I mean in general. A lot of people are worried, especially employees, there a whole lot of uncertainty in every business and our open, honest communication really helped I think bring everyone through this crisis.’
Damian went on to offer some interesting insights from a customer engagement perspective.
DG: ‘Take contract negotiation as an example. Normally we’d fly out collectively to sit down with our customer and within the space of say a week, we’d be done. Now, I estimate it takes perhaps five times as long.’ I asked Damian to elaborate on why this is the case:
‘Well, just as we are all working from home, so is our customer. Now, no-one can get ‘huddle space’ and brainstorm, it’s the classic case of if there was a white board, we’d quickly sketch up the sticking points. Now everything is more formal and each point takes longer. And I get it - it’s harder to feel like you have instant ‘backing’ when you are working remotely, so commitment probably takes longer.’
By this point it was clear that the daily schedules of both managers and employees were now full from dawn to dusk with video meeting after video meeting. I was curious to understand how the roles of critical support staff were changing as they worked hard to keep the corporate machinery working smoothly. Who better to ask than an executive assistant - cue Sarah.
Sarah, I get the sense that there are a lot more meetings now. Why is that?
SH: ‘Well, it’s because people have now got all that travel time back. Previously half of the team would have spent 4 or 5 hours a day travelling and that’s half the day. Now, that 4 or 5 hours is spent at their laptops, being productive, so yes, a lot more meetings. There are downsides though, like trying to do too much. I mean, they get lots of new ideas and their ‘to do’ lists just grow and now, with those freed up hours they’re so much more productive, but trying to contain and keep up with their output - well, it generates a lot more activity for them to manage. So, essentially, there’s a lot more going on.’
Wow, how are individuals managing? How about your boss?
SH: ‘How is he managing? That wonderful thing called the ‘decline’ button! It’s simply not possible to accept everything. You have to prioritise what’s coming in. Does it need to be done there and then or could it possibly wait a week? In a funny kind of way, the move to virtual working has meant I am doing a lot more of what a ‘traditional’ executive PA would do. I have to really ensure that his diary is working well, because you have to do it a lot more now. Before, there were fewer meetings in the diary, now, his diary can be full from 8am to 5.30pm… Effective co-ordination of his meetings and schedule is much more intensive. I also have to make sure that my boss has a 30 minute buffer between his meetings.’
That’s interesting, why do you do that?
SH: (Laughing) ‘Well, I have to make sure he has enough time to go to the loo or make a cup of tea. Seriously though, I know what would happen, he’s so focused that he’d probably sit at his desk in front of his screen for hours on end. I have to put this in his schedule - and be strict about it - at the end of the day it’s his well-being that I’m looking after as well.’
How do you manage your time now? Aren’t you overloaded too?
SH: ‘Well, some things that I did before, I don’t have to do now. Take expenses for example. Before I used to manage expenses for the whole team - now there’s no travel, so guess what? No expense receipts to process!’
Keen to see if the observations so far were reflective across other industries, I turned to our Advisory Partner, Gavin Devine:
Gavin, how has virtual working changed day-to-day business across the sectors where you provide advice?
GD: ‘My take is that the senior management teams that I work with have replicated an awful lot of internal management using video collaboration software. I suspect that these seniors are talking to each other more now than they were previously. The simple reason is that video conferencing is pretty convenient and you can do it easily, but also there’s been a great deal of focus on people’s mental health and wellbeing and there has been real desire to maintain contact and an ongoing dialogue. The travel restrictions have also meant that people are generally much more available. In terms of winning business, video conferencing does not appear to stand in the way at all. I have myself won a couple of clients during lockdown including one I have never met in the flesh at all. These deals have been entirely concluded over video, and we've started working together in the same way. It is so much more efficient, as hours that would have been taken up travelling are being used more productively. ‘
How has virtual working challenged industry in general?
GD: ‘Well, I do feel that in some sectors there has been a real lack of imagination in terms of adapting to virtual working. On some level it can be understandable, but you have to adapt - if you are a retailer you go online, if you are a pub you start doing home deliveries … there are of course certain industries were adaption is extremely difficult - the airline industry or hospitality are prime examples where it’s really hard. However, in every other aspect you have to re-adjust, you don’t do training face-to-face, you do it online. The premium on being imaginative is massive right now. It’s entirely possible to do most service-based roles online, but you have to be imaginative about it.’
During the course of these conversations we discussed a wide range of topics and covered much ground. In the end though, the pressing questions turned to the months ahead and I was interested to know how each viewed the working landscape of the future.
Shirin, has virtual working made business more or less effective?
SD: ‘It’s an interesting and honestly I don’t know yet - it’s early days. What I can say is, and I’ll give you an example, one of the companies, where I sit on the board, has a quarterly sales meeting which traditionally meets face-to-face with folks flying in from all around the world - we’d have a four day program. This year we had to do all of that remotely and we really didn’t know how it was going to go. (JT: laughing, ‘You should have called me.’) Actually, it was better than we thought - we managed to get it done in two days - we didn’t have the usual disruption from disjointed travel schedules and on reflection we didn’t feel that there was any reduced quality in terms of the information exchange. After lockdown, it’s entirely feasible that we may not revert to quarterly reviews that are ‘in person’.’
I asked Damian to look into the future.
Damian, what do you think the new ‘normal’ might look like?
DG: ‘I think for the rest of this year things will stay pretty much as they are. Everyone has a duty of care to both customers and employees and I would be surprised if I saw face-to-face customer engagement this year. The risk of something (bad) happening is too high. I think there is the realisation that we are going to be doing a lot more video conferencing, from my perspective, I look at how much I was travelling and I’m thinking ‘maybe I didn’t need to do half of that’ and everyone I speak to in the industry is having the same reflection. The problem is when do we think we are going to get back into face-to-face customer engagement? Also, many corporate boards are looking at this as a long-term, cost saving opportunity - I mean, I’ve never seen my expenses at zero!’
Sarah, how about you, what do you think work will look like?
SH: ‘For me, I don’t think it will look too different from what it is now and that means working from home with the ability to go into the office from time-to-time. It is important you have the comradery with the people you work with, yes, we see each other on the weekly video call and the Friday night virtual team pub night. So, it is important that we can go back into the office. I think the team will use video conferencing much more for customer meetings as it is so much more efficient than travelling. Our board, for example, just held their last meeting virtually - so it can be done.’
Gavin, in the future how will management spot and nurture rising stars?
‘Results count right? But, maybe the question is ‘what are the risks of missing great talent?’. I think people that are successful and do a good job will still shine. The challenge is that there are people with potential, who, with nurturing could really fly - I think a lot of those high quality people could be missed simply because of how they are managed.’
I was about to draw the conversation to a close, when Gavin stopped me, offering the following parting remark. I think it is well worth considering, and here it is:
GD: ‘You know I think it is really really easy for us middle class people living in moderately nice houses to think that this is all great, no more commuting etc, without taking time to consider how difficult all of this is for some of our colleagues, particularly junior colleagues. They may feel very differently to us about working from home, not seeing people, understanding what it means for their careers. Some simply don’t have much space at home and some have difficult situations to manage at home. We must avoid the lazy assumption that life is sweet…’
As ever, I am truly grateful to the interviewees for taking time out of their busy schedules to share their views on this, one of the business challenges of our time. Shirin, Damian, Sarah, Gavin, many many thanks.