Don’t miss what was a lively debate between Thinkspiration’s Tracey Swanepoel, Henley Africa dean Jon Foster-Pedley, and Biznews founder Alec Hogg. As the Covid-19 lockdown grips South Africans, the three discussed why we need business continuity, resilience and leadership more than ever. The discussion was also peppered with listener’s questions… – Stuart Lowman
We have our webinar guests – Thinkspiration’s Tracey Swanepoel, nice to have you for the webinar this evening. Where are you talking from?
Itâs great to be here, Alec. I’m talking to you from outside Johannesburg. I don’t want to make everyone terribly jealous but we’re on a farm, so we can run and walk a little bit, but it’s really lovely to be connecting and doing this tonight with everyone.
And Jon Foster-Pedley – the Dean of Henley. It looks like you’re almost on a farm Jon, but I know the thatched roof can be a little misleading.
Yes, Iâm in the deep miles of Woodmead actually, near the Country Club – so thatâs the nearest to the country that Iâve gotten. Thank you, lovely to see you.
For bandwidth reasons, weâre going to switch off our webcams now but Stu – if you could just give us confirmation that everybody’s hearing us, and that we are also ready to take your questions.Â
Excellent, thanks Alec. Good evening to all. Just on the control panel on the right-hand side, you’ll see the little high five button – if you can see the first slide, which is leadership, and hear my voice clearly – can you just high five us so that we know it’s coming through? Okay, excellent, Alec – got a few there – thatâs brilliant. And those who are new to our webinars; we do like to keep them conversational so if you could please put your questions in – thereâs a little drop-down menu on the control panel – if you write your questions in there, I’ll pop them through to the relevant person and we can have a good conversation.
Excellent, and that’s exactly the way that this goes. We are going to have a 10-minute introductory presentation by Tracey Swanepoel. Tracey is the founder of Thinkspiration; she has an MBA, she has a very long and distinguished career and, in fact, her book The Leadership Riptide – I had the privilege of writing the introduction to, so I know and admire Tracey’s work. The way I described you, Trace, in the email to the Biznews community, was that you are a practical leadership teacher. Do you think thatâs fair?
Well thanks, Alec. I hope so. What we try and focus on is leading and how it happens in practice. – it’s really a daily thing. So that’s pretty accurate, I would say.
Okay, well the floor is yours.
Thank you, Alec. So, I’m going to share about four or five slides just to get the conversation going, but to start it off – I just recall Thursday the 5th of March very clearly; I was sitting in a meeting in a coffee shop and we were interrupted by the news of our first case of Covid-19, and I was reflecting the other day – it’s just over a month ago, but it really feels like a lifetime ago. Not in a million years could I have imagined the weeks that followed; the life-and-death conversations with small business clients about surviving lockdown and actually beyond that, hearing about businesses like Edcon facing the threat of permanent closure, the Rand going to 19 (although I think itâs rebounded a little bit today), Moody’s, Fitch downgrades and, of course, the constant worrying about the virus. Will we get it? Are friends and family okay?
Our daily dinner conversation has been taken over by âhow many cases have we got todayâ, and I think that, Zach actually â our 14 year old son â commented, âWhat did we talk about before we had this?â Also, dealing with that sense of loss around life that’s been cancelled indefinitely. I think that the slide that you’re looking at now; weâre in a crisis but as leaders we actually need to step up and be dealers in hope. I think that what this crisis really offers us is an opportunity to look at things differently and to really re-evaluate – âhow we can lead differently, what does it mean for the way that we lead?â. This slide here really captures it for me – not that I’m a Churchill groupie – but I think that as leaders, wherever we are leaders wherever we find ourselves; whether it’s in small business, as entrepreneurs, leading teams in corporates, or running corporates – we have to be dealers in hope and all of us are actually called to step up and do that right now in every situation that we face.
Dealers in hope, but not losing sight of reality – abounded optimism as I call it. So, people are looking to us for – âwhat do we do nowâ, and I think that that’s why I love these quotes. In every difficulty – there is an opportunity and we have to be looking for these opportunities to survive these difficulties, but also – how can we use this crisis to change things, to do things differently and better – things that maybe weren’t going so brilliantly before. So, the next slide after this; looking at that, when it comes to the world of work (which is the next slide after the Churchill slide) – there’s a lot that we need to look at, re-evaluate, and do differently. And I thought of this in terms of BC (before Corona); how are we doing in the world of work? Just going back to the previous slide – it’s hardly like we were really shooting the lights out.
For many people, when you talk about work – it’s a negative. It’s something that you actually have to get through. It’s a four-letter word and not in the good sense. People talk about âone day, when work is over, I’m going to do what I really love doing – I’m gonna escape from itâ and unfortunately (or fortunately) – we’ve got the stats to back this up. Gellap (the guys that measure engagement and have globally been doing it for years) have actually found that only 13% of people in the workplace are actually engaged. So, 87% of people are somewhere on that continuum of being disengaged, dreading work, really sort of dead weight and, in the worst-case scenario, actively sabotaging. Alec, I know you often talk about tap-dancing to work, but that’s hardly the picture that this really portrays. When I was thinking about this and wondering what it means for us, I really feel like; âis this the normal that we want to go back to?â. I don’t think so.
That’s where I think the opportunity lies in terms of how we re-evaluate the world of work and how we re-evaluate leadership. If we look at the following slide; which is that inter-Covid-19 (I’ve just lost the visual on that, I’m not sure if people can see it). So, here comes this bomb that’s been dropped on us – and suddenly everything’s different; weâre all working in a different way and doing things remotely. But the opportunity in this, is that it’s a huge unfreeze opportunity – everything is up for grabs in terms of how we need to change things and I think the question that we need to ask ourselves is what this means for business survival, for resilience, and for leadership – and what are the opportunities for us to, not only survive this but in so doing, create a new normal that enables us to really thrive?
So, the last slide that I wanted us to look at is really three opportunities that all the neuroscience that we’ve seen have actually proved; that this is the way to engage people – this is the way to build commitment. There are many more than these, but I’ve just put these three ideas forward as thought starters. The first one is connection; how can we connect differently? If you can see the visual/slide; there’s a picture of two hands reaching out to each other and I think the opportunity here is – we now have to connect in a different way. We have to connect remotely by Zoom – not sit in the same room. But, by having to do it differently – we actually get the opportunity to think about it, to recalibrate. If you think about meetings that you would walk into physically: people would walk in, sit down, and scroll through their phones – there wasn’t really too much connection happening and now, this throws it open to âhow can we actually connect better?â.
I think as leaders, we need to connect with people – not just functionally (so, not just on a Zoom call to talk about functional stuff), but more importantly than ever – to connect emotionally. People are needing care. People are needing attention. There are lots of different ways to go about it, which we can talk through in the conversation. Something that struck me in the last few weeks of doing this is; you see people in a different way when you can have a Zoom call with them. You see the kids, you see the dogs, you see another facet of those people and it’s great. It’s so important to see people as actual human beings – not just Stormtrooper-like corporate beings that come into the office every day.
So, the second opportunity that is really exciting is on the following slide. The second opportunity is progress – daily progress is the most motivating thing for us as human beings. Of course, we all need a dream of a better future, we all need the big goal – âwhat is the mountain you’re gonna climb?â. For me, it was always about Wimbledon -I love to play tennis and watch the Wimbledon Championship – but right now, I think focusing people, focusing teams on daily small wins – âwhat have we actually achieved today?â – (this might be something as small as having sent an email or gotten a client to pay an outstanding invoice), as a leader, to actually focus on what these small steps are that are taking us forward⌠In terms of resilience – this is a hugely important exercise. This is what energises us – itâs our fuel and it really is important in terms of building resilience, especially in times of crisis and uncertainty.
The last one is autonomy and creativity. I love this opportunity because now, working remotely means people are less under control, less under the leadersâ control, more autonomous – able to do things differently. I think here, instead of trying to install draconian measures to monitor behaviour (which I’ve read some horrific stories about i.e. people having to check in every 10 minutes or whatever) – this is the opportunity to allow people to be creative, innovative, and come up with their own solutions. This crisis is a great equaliser. Nobody has been here before. No-one has got tried and tested answers and this is fantastic because it gives leaders the opportunity to actually be authentic, to be vulnerable, and to say, âI don’t know – what do you think?â and really to send the message that âwe’re all in this togetherâ, to elevate other people and give the message that âI’m not the one that is the know-it-all in this situationâ.
That’s just to get the conversation going. A lot of these things are not rocket science, but it’s really been proved by science. These are the things that get people going, these are the things that build commitment and what’s so exciting about this new way of being, for me, is that – the battle has always been, in terms of the way we lead in the world of work, âhow do you get people out of the ruts – the same old, same oldâ. We’ve always done it – we don’t even think about it and here we are; in a situation where we’ve got the opportunity to do things differently. There are lots of stories of brave leaders that are actually doing this stuff out there – doing even more amazing stuff -this is happening. They’re doing it and hopefully, that will start to become the new normal. From my side over to everybody else, over to you Alec – that’s really a way to start the conversation.
Tracey, are you there?
Yes, I can hear you.
I’m sorry, we’ve all been kicked out for no reason so it’s just you and me here. Alecâs also struggling. I’ll try to pull some questions out.
Okay, great – Iâm glad thereâs life out there.
No, youâve been going. Unfortunately, I’ve never experienced this before – I’ve lost Alec, Jon was cut off. I’m hoping he’s coming back now, but letâs see how it goes. Letâs just go for it.
Iâve got some feedback that somebody that I know has just texted and said they can hear us, so letâs go, Stuart.
The people who are online â and we do apologise â if you can send through your questions, Iâll pass them on. The slideshow is finished unfortunately, so it will just be sound for now. So, letâs just get going.
Okay.
So, in a timeline – is this not an all-hands-on-deck situation? I think you might have mentioned something like that in your presentation.
Yes.
And you mentioned stories – do we really have time for stories in a crisis?
Let me get to the all-hands-on-deck question. Certainly, it is, but I think what’s really important here (in a time like this) – is to know yourself as a leader and to know your people really, really well. We work a lot with strengths and leaders identifying people’s strengths and, while it is important that everybody is involved, actually understanding what the strengths – the things that people do naturally well – are, and how you can get those people involved to do those things is so important because strengthâs are an energiser; so people actually love doing what they’re good at. If you sit and get everybody to do everything – it’s really counterproductive. Whereas, actually leveraging peopleâs strengths at a time like this is absolutely vital, energising, and it builds commitment. It also gives that emotional satisfaction. Whenever youâre in a place of strength – you get that, so I think that’s really important.
The other question Stu, was about stories. You asked whether in a time of crisis we have time for stories – very much so. Stories are actually a vital communication tool – they’re probably the most powerful way of communicating. They help us, as leaders, to get our messages to stick. There was a newspaper headline recently (I think it was in The Washington Post) about the 1918 Spanish flu epidemic; Philadelphia had this huge parade and they didn’t cancel it and what happened was that 10,000 to 16,000 people died, whereas the neighbouring town of St Louis had cancelled it and only had a mortality rate of 700. Those are statistics.Â
Those are facts, but put in the parameters of a story – it makes it really attention-grabbing and really memorable. That’s what we need to do as leaders. The other thing that stories do is they connect people; when people share stories, they feel closer and I think that’s what we need to be doing as leaders – is getting people to feel like they are in this together. That’s where stories can be very helpful.
Excellent, thanks Tracey. Jon, are you there?Â
Yes, I am.
Excellent – we can get the conversation going now. Just on that Trace; Stephanie wants to know how much motivation leaders should give in a time when there’s the possibility of retrenching staff? What messages should leaders send out to employees, to try to keep a positive momentum, knowing that some employees are going to lose their jobs?
Just from my point of view, what’s really important is to be transparent and to also say âI don’t know what’s going to happen, but what is the best that we could do in this situation?â. So it’s really important to still give hope but to also say, âlook, things are not necessarily within our control.â It’s really important to build emotional commitments in a time like this; I think what would be the worst thing to do is to not say anything – to try and avoid it – because people are thinking it anyway. It’s really important for leaders to, what I always call âspeaking to the issuesâ – to talk about the stuff that you might not want to address as a leader – now more than ever. Because this is what builds trust – this is what builds credibility. That transparency is absolutely vital.
Well, I am the one who’s been keeping a very silent ear. I do apologise. It seems as though the bandwidth in Bryanston is not as good as the bandwidth wherever you guys are. But Iâm back now and thanks to all the people who actually WhatsAppâd me to say, âWhere the heck are you, Hogg?â. Thanks Tracey – for continuing to roll along, even though I think the slides might have gotten lost. Jon, as Tracey said, itâs a question thatâs also pretty much up your street.
Yes, it is. I think Tracey’s got it spot on, actually. There are a couple of interesting sayings. One is, âIn the absence of information – fantasy reignsâ and what people’s minds do – being that we’re blessed with imagination – is make things up, unless you give them the facts. When you’ve got a really difficult situation like this – where nobody really knows the answers – you’ve got to really respect people’s capability for sense-making. Norman Adami from SAB always used to say, âMake reality your friendâ, and I think in terms of leadership, I agree with Tracey – you’ve got to find a way to express things clearly and simply (not in a depressed way at all), but you’ve got to give people the respect and the honour to deal with the truth that is out there and let them understand with you that this is all our lives and truth will help us come together. You have to, as a leader, be strong and take on a lot and in a sense – become an umbrella for others. But there’s only so much umbrella-ing you can do in a situation like this. You’ve got to motivate people’s engagements and I think that truth, reality, and respect does bring people on board – so I’d say Tracey’s got it spot on.
Stu, I see there are 31 questions according to my screen here. Do you want to start going through some?
Starting at the top, Alec. Shawn says, âHow do we not create a divide between the people that have and the people that don’t?â, and he uses an example: people with fibre thatâs uncapped, and trying to engage and motivate team members who have limited connectivity.
Within an organisation, clearly. Tracey, whatâs your thought on that one?
I think that that’s obviously a practical issue, but we shouldn’t let the technology lead us off course. When you want to really be connected as a leader; we don’t have to default to âokay now everybody’s on Zoom’ – how about a phone call, what about a WhatsApp, what about a little voice note – there are ways of getting to people that everybody has access to – an SMS. The more unusual it is and the more effort that you go to – it might be a very simple thing – but when you really have the need and the desire and the intention to connect with people – you’ll find a way. I don’t think it’s that difficult.Â
Jon, isn’t it really the leaderâs responsibility to make sure that people are connected? I know at Biznews what we did when we got the inkling that the lockdown was coming; we quickly got everybody into the office and made sure that the team had enough bandwidth and, if they hadn’t had enough data, we made sure that we acquired it quickly and we got the routers in etc. Isn’t that really the responsibility, not of the person whoâs working there – who might be living on a tight budget, but of the company?
(Jon) I think that’s true. Often, leaders back away from diving into detail; but when a detail is mission-critical and strategic (like connectivity is now) – without that, we’re sunk. I think that’s absolutely the leadersâ requirement; to make sure of the details of connectivity – the dongles, the re-charging of phones online and all that sort of thing – and continually so. The other thing that struck me is that – we’re so used to having the bandwidth to talk broadly that when we’ve got very narrow bandwidth – I wonder if that isn’t a time when we’ve got to be even more precise about the way we brief people and think very carefully about what we say, because there’s only a few words and a few concepts we can get over before things crash – so, let’s be very explicit and thoughtful about what it is we ask people to do and how clearly we express it. What do you think?
(Tracey) Absolutely. I couldn’t agree more and what we also have to remember is not just the functional stuff. Obviously, that’s really important but it’s even more important, now more than ever before, that we do very simple things like appreciate people, thank people – be deliberate about what we’re doing. I’ve got some feedback from a client that is a CEO of a continuous operation (a smelter) and this business had to really turn things around – had to move mountains to be able to survive the lockdown, go into a care and maintenance type of situation (which they did) – and a week later, he told me they’re having their standard meeting, talking about all the stuff of the day – very functional – and it was quite fractious. You could just hear, it wasn’t necessarily the idea that everybody was ready to move mountains again – and he said it suddenly occurred to him he actually should appreciate them, he should thank them – very simple. But he did that and he said it’s changed everything about the way they work together. Use the technology to be very clear and specific functionally, but also use it to reach out to people, to show that you care, to send appreciation, to thank people, to send notes – to do that emotional stuff – it is very important for leaders, especially now.
We’ve got a lot of questions and I’d suggest that we try and answer many of them. My friend, Clive Eksteen, wants to know â right up both of your streets – culture versus strategy going forward.
(Jon) Well, I’m always fascinated by these conversations between culture and strategy. The one thing about the strategy word and the culture word is that they are suitcase words. They have culture or strategy written on top of the suitcase – but when you open the suitcase, out fly a thousand different interpretations. So, you could argue it either way; that culture eats strategy for breakfast or strategy eats culture for breakfast – most people would say the former. But the point is here that strategy is a deliberate, organised attempt to try and get to some sort of (normally) a vision of the future which you think is true and have prepared certain steps to get there. Of course, in novel situations, that doesn’t really work. You’ve got to learn your way through. And then, culture; the way you’ve got people to think, the way people are ready to step up – whether their minds are open enough to even observe what’s going on around them and free enough from fear – but with enough fear to look -so that they will see things. It’s a wonderful debate. I really think it is, but right now – if I had to put my money on it – I’d go down for culture, but I would strategise to make sure culture is in place. What do you think, Tracey?
(Tracey) Absolutely. I agree with exactly the way you’ve put it across, John. I think that right now, in terms of strategy – because we’re in a situation we don’t know – we can’t know the long-term strategic plans; in five yearsâ time – how are we going to allocate resources, how are we going to get there? This is much more of a work in progress. For me, I’d also give culture my vote here, because culture is the way we think, the way we do things, how innovative we are, how creative we are, and basically – how strategically agile we are. So, in order to actually get where we need to go – my money would be on culture here, very much so.
Colleen Aldiss has got a comment rather than a question that it’ll be interesting to get your feedback on. She says; âI have found that the connection via Zoom etc has actually improved my work situation as a lecturer. I’m able to get international speakers and get my students from across the country in one room – which has created more links than I’ve ever managed to do before.â
(Tracey) Yes, I’d like to comment on that. It’s very interesting. We work with Anecdote (who’s an Australian-based global storytelling business) and they’ve got partners all over the world and, in fact, just this morning – we had a partners call with probably 20 partners that we’ve never had before. I don’t really know why we haven’t had it before (because we’ve never been in this situation) so I think certainly – there’s an opportunity for getting people together in a way that we haven’t done before. I am still adapting to this new environment myself. I find it quite difficult almost from the nonverbal point of view and somebody actually tweeted today – when somebody was giving a presentation – he said, âWhen I’m presenting, could somebody please indicate that they’re alive out there?â So, I think what happens in Zoom is you don’t see the reactions – you can’t read the reactions of people online as easily – and for those of us that are very attuned to that, it’s quite difficult to get to grips with. We will get to grips with it, but I think certainly, practically – there are huge opportunities that we just haven’t ever seen before now.
Jon, it’s interesting from a business school’s perspective. You could presumably start pulling in people from all over the world when your faculty are doing lectures – if this is the way that we’re going to be doing things going forward.
(Jon) Yes, spot on. It’s a wonderful question, isn’t it? We’ve always thought that the classroom is it and you canât possibly make connections through digital, but then I thought âwell, we watch all these films and we listen to people on radio, and we listen – and we get emotionalâ, so you certainly can generate emotions or engage emotions through digital means – it’s absolutely certain. Weâve also gone fully digital now and today; I was having meetings with people in Oman, in Miami, in Australia and Belgium – in one meeting – and then a whole bunch of other countries in the next – so you absolutely can. We’re about to launch our series next week â the free series – for small and medium enterprises; to help small companies survive and we’ve got twelve sessions (and six of those are going to be our international faculty who I’ve never met and two of those international faculties are African). So, we’ve suddenly assembled this global capability and you know what – with a little bit of practice, I think this is going to change the way we do things. Weâve had so many sacred cows before. I think we should dive into the adventure and see what we can make of all this.
I love that. There’s Mike Tibbetsâ question, who picks up from something that we discussed earlier, âIsn’t the solution to include a connectivity allowance, albeit temporary, to ensure connectivity for the businessesâ requirements?â I guess it’s all part of fixing or supporting people on the ground. Do you have that, Jon?
(Jon) Yes, absolutely. At the end of the day; a fish doesn’t think about water much – it just swims in it. We swim now in connectivity, don’t we? So, we certainly feel it when it’s not there and it’s one of those things that plenty of research has shown – if you increase connectivity and you increase some of the foundations of infrastructure, you increase business – and so it’s absolutely mad that the connectivity and the oligopolies have held the prices so high for so long. Making the internet fully available, and pervasively so, at very high speeds for everybody is certainly going to drive the economy and let’s hope that these satellites get up there and we get high connectivity. Mind you, as a parent, I’m not so sure about that with my teenage son and daughter – who are wonderful people, but very wedded to their iPads – so there we go.
Joy Sykes asks; âIs this a forced opportunity to invest in digitisation and modernisation of communication platforms as part of business continuity plans?â Tracey?
(Tracey) Well, I think it’s going to be inevitable – it’s going to be something that is almost like a cost of doing business. I think that it’s just going to become the new normal, but I think that we shouldn’t let the technology obscure the opportunity for more humanity, if I can put it that way. So, it’s going to become the new normal – it’s going to be something that we have to invest in; but I think that with more focus on digital – we have to realise that we need to actually be more focused on connecting with people; where they are – making sure that weâre emotionally connected, not just cyber connected.
Stuart, have you asked that question from Derek Christian?
No, we havenât yet Alec. The one on reverting back to the old ways – we havenât touched on that yet.
Okay, let me read that one through. Tracey, I agree with what youâve said. However, do you not think that once this is over – people and organisations will revert to type and go back to their old ways; going to the office, physically reporting to the boss, face-to-face meetings etc. Very good question and one that I think many people are considering – especially those who want to invest in these very cheap property stocks right now.
(Tracey) Yes, I think that’s what we actually have to be very deliberate about. This is an opportunity, as I said – an unfreeze. This is the time when leaders have got the opportunity and the license to actually do things differently and connect in a different way. We’ve been in a very hierarchical type of situation. The way that people communicate; it’s boss, subordinate, teams – and because we’ve got the opportunity now to do things online and virtually, a lot of that hierarchy can be replaced with connection – real connection between people and real relationships between people. If those are well-established and those practices start to become habits – if we do go back to normal, I don’t think it will be quite back to where we were. I actually think it’ll be going back to a new normal, which I sincerely hope would have progressed. We will be different after this, so I’m sincerely hopeful that we use this opportunity to change things that really need to be changed.
Jon, I’d love to get your thought on this and particularly, if the lockdown ends in – what’s it now, nine days – do you think it’ll be three weeks that will be forgotten very quickly or is it enough of a jolt? And I guess, if the lockdown continues – would that also not reinforce the new normal?
(John) Well, on a slightly light note, thereâs an old salesman (old man Dino, I think his name was) and he said, âyou can only replace a bad habit with a good habitâ, and it takes 21 days to establish a new habit. Thatâs kind of curious. I think itâs very interesting. Of course, we have the infrastructure, weâve got the companies, weâve got the habits of working which say, âOh, letâs go back to what we were doing beforeâ – but who is the âweâ weâre talking about? If you look around to emerging enterprises, young enterprises, the very successful – what’s happened? Even Capitec and the very fluid organisations you’ve seen around that have started quickly, and the creative and the ICT sector – thatâs a different âweâ; thatâs the âweâ that operates in a different way – already working in these ways. What I think youâll see is a shift in the centre of gravity much more towards this and an epiphany in people who will suddenly understand that virtual works; it doesn’t have to be an either/or, it’s an âand bothâ- but the âand bothâ balance will be deeply shifted and irreversibly so, because once youâve had an epiphany, you’re going to be very uncomfortable living with that in future years. People have seen that value is to be made in this – cheaper ways of doing things/better ways of doing things. The other final thing is; people have been forced to learn some skills and those skills won’t go away and I think they’ll enjoy progressing them. I think it’s quite democratising, too. So, yes of course weâll lurch backwards – but I think the momentum is always forward and the world’s going that way too, so I think we’re catching up.
Steve Burnett asks; âAs a small business operator with around 20 staff or around R10m per year turnover, there is a clear trade-off between paying suppliers and/or stretching invoices out and keeping the wheels turning – paying staff in full. Doing the right thing could easily lead to bankruptcy and it’s kind of a dog fest – every man for himself. Do you think that social media – trial by internet – will still be applicable here or will we be in a new paradigm as these stories are going to be dime-a-dozen?â interesting comment and question. Tracey?
Well, I think what we need to do as a small business, and speaking as a small business myself, I think one has to worry less about what everybody else is doing and more about what you feel comfortable with – what you can live with. I don’t think we’re in a situation where it’s each man for himself. The large corporates will probably survive – but what if they come out on the other side and they’ve lost a whole lot of suppliers that haven’t survived? This thing is bigger than any one business – we can’t survive on our own and I think it’s a case of really thinking about others and what they also need. So yes, I think we’re gonna have to think a little bit differently than that âeach man for himselfâ – and that’s gonna be challenging.
Just to add on to what you’ve said – to support it, surely the real focus here has to be back into, âwhat is a business actually aboutâ – and a business is there to serve its customers. Quite often, that gets forgotten in the mix. I love Jeff Bezos and when you read his annual Chairman’s statements or letters to his shareholders, he continues to emphasise âwe are a customer obsessed businessâ. Quite often, in many industries (including my own), you get the feeling that the businesses are being run for the benefit of the management; and they’ve got nice big walls around them and they’re able to continue as before – with nice share options and bonuses that bear very little relation to the contribution they’re making. Jon, I’d be interested to get your thoughts on that.
Yes, that’s a really interesting line of thinking. On the first point about whether you should pay your suppliers or not; backs to the wall, everybodyâs going to stop paying their suppliers. In three or four monthsâ time, you’re gonna come out of that. What’s been the most difficult thing you’ve done over the last five years? Get brilliant suppliers. You come out and you come out into a desert, and suppliers are often more important than your employees, funnily enough. Itâs harder to get them and they’re very specialised, so you really do need to (for your own interest) – keep the ecosystem alive. Now, the government can really help with this. It’s a really difficult challenge that we’re facing now about how we balance between our selfish interests, our altruistic interests, and our strategic perception of the ecosystem weâre living in. What’s happened with Covid-19 is that it’s become instantly and inescapably apparent that we are interdependent – that our fates depend on each other. The other thing is that it’s become more and more clear that corruption and untrammelled corporate profiteering has enormously negative effects on society; in terms of creating a high Gini-coefficient, lots of poor people who can’t get out of there and also environmental and other issues. So, there’s a change in orientation among many people; it’s not an altruistic one that we love each other and that we’ve all become latter-day heroes or something, but it’s just a really deep understanding that, like it or not, we’re in this together and we have to find ways to keep the system going. And we in South Africa have to find ways to keep the economy going through all this – with loads of discretionary effort and stepping outside of our comfort zones – into new areas of skills. I think it will teach us a lot.
Tracey?
Yes, absolutely. I think that we all are learning that this âone or the other way of beingâ isn’t going to work, so we’ve got to be aware – we are in this together, we are part of an ecosystem and, as John said so eloquently, there’s no point in my business surviving if I don’t have the great suppliers that actually contributed to my business delivering value. It is going to be incredibly challenging because this isn’t how we’ve grown up – we haven’t faced anything like this before, so it’s really challenging in terms of mindset. But I think what helps is to keep this big picture in perspective. I think that just the understanding of âwe’re part of an ecosystem and we need each other to get through this togetherâ is what is required.
Leon Theron asks, âWhat are the most important traits for working through this crisis?â – and he’s referring to leadership traits. Now, you’ve written a book on it, Tracey, so you can have first crack.
Thanks. I’m not going to go through all the points in my book Alec, but I think what’s really important is for leaders to recognise that they are actually the feel-makers, if I can call it that. We often talk about leaders as the tastemakers, but leadersâ emotions are incredibly contagious and what leaders have to do is; they have to be optimistic, they have to be adaptable, I would say calm in the face – calm and optimistic go together, predictable, so – in a situation that isn’t very predictable – I think leaders have to be predictable, so behaviours like regular updates, regular phone calls, and regular communication are absolutely vital. This is not the time to go off the air. I think they have to be energised. I think they have to be in the front saying, âwe can do this, guys – we’ve done things like this before, we’ve got through this togetherâ. Again, I just want to reiterate the caring aspects; the actual caring – people need to come out of this and remember that they felt cared for. And they actually have to be decisive; this prevaricating and wondering – we don’t have the luxury of that. Leaders have to be decisive and be OK with taking decisions that may not be perfect.
Brilliant. Jon?
Yes, I really agree with what you’re saying there, Tracey. What also struck me is that it’s quite a paradoxical time too for leaders, because on one hand; you need to see priorities – you need to have a very clear focus on doing the few things that will take you through it. On the other hand; you need to be able to have a very wide range and scan what’s going on. Leaders need to be experts in Covid-19 and the graphs – not the medical details of it – but understand how this process unravels, understand what’s happening in other countries, and be able to get a very good idea of what the patterns and rhythms that are facing us can be and what the scenarios are. Often, when you look back at chaotic situations, you can make sense of them but you just can’t make sense of them at the time. So, the difference between chaos and sense is learning and reflection. I think what we need to do is make time to reflect and draw back from this. When you have a chaotic situation there are often elements and structure that you can put in for yourself and other people to stabilise them, so I fully agree with you about emotional stability and emotional regularity. And also, in terms of process stability; putting in meetings at regular times, talking to people, hearing them, and then mirroring back and refocusing. The other thing that leaders get tired of quite often is saying the same thing message over and over again, but I think we have to remember – we might hear ourselves say that thing 500 times a day, but other people have only heard you say it once or twice – so our duty is to stay fresh and repeat meaning regularly/all the time, and we will get through it.
From Malose Chaba who says, âHow do you focus in the midst of uncertainty and with so much noise?â. Reflection, Jon, as youâve mentioned there, and actually educating yourself as a leader and then – getting back to what Tracey was saying â being consistent and sharing that on. Okay, there are quite a few more questions here. Letâs get to Johann Jooste who says, âAre other countries ahead of us in terms of web connectivity, regardless of lockdown?â Jon?
Yes. Look at South Korea. Can you imagine?Â
I think that was a very appropriate question because your bandwidthâs being capped a little bit now, Jon. But yes, they are ahead of us, Jon.
(Tracey) The medium is the message, Alec.
Indeed. Hereâs Oscar Chalupsky, another good friend. He says, âWill we see more online shopping and a downturn in retail – more stores doing the Amazon model?â Tracey?
Who knows? I donât know but I just think that it very much depends on what the normal looks like that we go back to. I think it will certainly be an option. I suspect that, in terms of humans actually interacting â doing the conferences, meetings, workshops, face-to-face interactions – I suspect that thatâs going to become even more precious than it was before. Weâre going to appreciate that because there are aspects of that that you canât get online. Yes, online is very functional and certainly, this is a huge opportunity – this is the time itâs most practical to do so. I certainly think that from a convenience point of view there will be certain sectors and certain purchases that would just make complete sense. Iâm not a retail expert at all but, in terms of the human side of it, there are going to be times – after all of this has normalised – we are going to treasure the things that we took for granted before.Â
Itâs a very interesting question that Oscar asks because, just sharing our own experience Tracey, after the initial lockdown; Jeannette tried to do online shopping and started off with Woolies – whose first delivery date was on 9th of May 2020. Then, we went to Pick n Pay – we couldnât get into the Pick n Pay system. We tried the same with Checkers because we saw the Checkers buzz bikes around and their tech wasnât working (not surprisingly, because of all the demand). And we ended up going to Thrupps of all people. When she spoke to the Thrupps people, she said itâs chaos there â the people in the dispatch area. But theyâre managing and weâre now buying from Thrupps, which is really nice (for Thrupps) and very good quality and you don’t really mind paying a little extra. I didn’t even know that they had the opportunity – so I guess, when one learns new habits – as you guys have been saying, we might actually stick with it.
Absolutely.
Karen Koch says, âI also hope that our new normal will be something between how we used to do things and what we’re doing now. There is value in interacting with people face to face, but we should not forget what we’re learning about collaborating virtually. Tracey, I think that talks to what you were saying a moment ago.
Completely. As I said, I was on the Zoom call with my anecdote colleagues who come from all over the world; so from Hong Kong, India, the US, the UK. We spoke at length about the value of an online offering, the pros and cons of online versus face-to-face – and there certainly are huge benefits to online that, if we hadn’t been forced into this situation, we would never have considered. So now, we are thinking differently about it. We are thinking – âhow can we actually figure out a way of getting the best of bothâ. So, this is the time – everything is open, everything is at stake to think about differently – and that’s quite exciting.Â
Jon, taking the best of both worlds – the best of the physical, the best of the online end and weâll then refocus our lives – to make sure it’s not absolute, but we actually move towards what makes the most sense at that point in time.
I think it really forces us to think a lot more about some of the deeper issues facing us. The treadmill we were on – if we were on it – it stopped, and then we looked around a bit and we actually looked at the treadmill, thought âwell maybe we can do betterâ. So I think a lot will change.
You both know London pretty well and having spent three years there recently – what completely baffled me was the way that, (where we lived, from which it was relatively easy to get into Waterloo – half an hour away in the little South African slice), you would have to stand in the train most of the time in the morning rush. You would then queue for probably another ten minutes to even get into the next underground train, and it was the same thing coming home. Surely now – leave the health issues aside, because I guess everybody gets the flu when youâre in that kind of confined space â the salary slaves are going to start revolting and say, âIâm not going to go through an hour or two hours per day commuting – there has to be a better wayâ. So maybe thatâs going to change, Tracey.
Absolutely. I think this will make all of us think differently about the effort that it requires. What we’re seeing now is the alternative – we are living the alternative, so I think that meetings are going to be very different. I saw a comment from someone on Twitter that said âI wish that forty minutes Zoom cut-off function was a standard feature in meetingsâ – because they obviously are much more focused and productive. It really makes us think about stuff; it was a habit, everybody had to be in the office. I think the challenge for leaders here is that you don’t have to see your people to be leading your people. I think it’s got huge implications in terms of trust and how we manage people remotely – but I think we are gonna be better because of that.
Well, we’ve reached our witching hour but we’ve got four more questions – the first one is from Anton van der Stadt who says, âOn digital, we cannot read body languageâ, which (I guess) means that you have to have physical as well. Jon?
Well, that’s very interesting because when we are doing our Zoom calls, we’ve got a few screens and you’re seeing everybody’s face really close up. It’s true, you can’t see body language easily, but you can certainly see facial language. Like on TV; you see every nuance of TV actors, the very subtle moves of their faces – and you can start to read a lot in people. So I was wondering about that myself and I think Anton’s right – but I think we can practice to see things and then also, when you’re working on calls, you can get quite clever about provoking little reactions and asking little questions to see how people are. So it’s a new skill set – I think you can.Â
You can also see when the eyes glaze over or when they’re answering or using their phones. Michael Leverton asks, âIn the context of Covid-19, how do you strike the balance between the mind (the shop floor, daily disciplines like orders on time – in full, invoices out, payments being received) and the long-term strategic views and what is the next step that we should take to evaluate where we are and how we should proceed?â Tracey?
Right now, we’re in a crisis and what we need to focus on, as I said earlier, is the long term – but that’s gonna be less relevant in a time like this. So I think, as leaders, we need to make meaning for people – so we need to actually connect those two things very clearly, very simply on a daily basis. So, when we survive and get through this and we want to achieve the long-term strategic objective – it is what we are doing today that is so important. It’s to make the links for people and make it meaningful for people.
Two more questions before we go, but I’d like both of you to have a crack at this one from PG Barry, âHow does one build a corporate culture remotely, especially for a start-up company?â Jon?
Well, I think that’s a very good question and I think you’ll be able to look at a lot of books about exponential organisations, start-up cultures and lean start-ups – all of which address that. There is a sense that culture can only be created with physical intimacy – but it most absolutely can be created. I think weâve all got to understand how to use these media, how to send clear messages, and how to get emotional on media as well (I don’t mean gushingly so – but just express anger, fear, liking, or whatever in these mechanisms). All culture is; is a set of values that keep us behaving within those parameters and funnily enough, in complex situations, that’s much more effective than direct command and control – because people stay within those boundaries of values and culture but experiment when they’re within them. And if you teach them to experiment – well, kill the things that don’t work well and amplify the ones that do – you’ve got the recipe for a flexible, agile, complex, adaptive, sort of anti-fragile organisation – and I think it’s a great time to practice. Remember that when we practice these things; we always feel like a fraud, we always feel stupid. Let’s get used to it Â
We’ve done that at Biznews and I can tell you – as a start-up, we’ve pretty much from the beginning had a remote organisation and the culture is very clear; we put our customers first, we go the extra mile. I mean, what the team has done during this Covid-19 pandemic has been quite extraordinary; people working until all hours and really pulling out the stops to make sure that the customers i.e. our readers are being best-served. And that’s all come from the culture – which is reinforced in the meetings that we have. We have a couple of meetings a day; regular meetings and a management meeting at least once a week. So those cultures – you don’t have to do that by sitting in the same room with someone – you can do it remotely. Itâs quite interesting, just popping back to what you said earlier Jon, about âcan you read body language digitallyâ. We can and we’ve got quite a lot of people on our team (who I suppose will be sitting there in their pyjamas, but you can see whether they are sleepy or had a long night) and the enthusiasm also becomes very reflective. So, I think all round what you can do remotely – we’ve done at Biznews, we’ve done it for six years – and you don’t always have to have it physically. Tracey?
Yes, what stands out for me about what you are saying and what Jon has said is that you have to be deliberate about it. When weâre in physical proximity, we often don’t think about something like culture. This is a little bit like a long-distance relationship; you have to talk regularly, you have to listen regularly, and you have to do things that are specifically focused on culture, on values. It’s about being conscious of it, being deliberate and doing things regularly/consistently. I think that makes a huge difference.
Colin Bellow says, âI’m worried that too much remote-type business will take a lot of the fun out of doing business.â What do you think, Jon?
Horses for courses really. I think some people really, and I do too, love the personal interaction. I love teaching. I love being a little close to people and having that direct empathy. We would all miss that – it’s very human, deeply human, to do that. At the same time, there are enormous satisfactions to being able to connect at will. How many of us now listening have suddenly been contacting relatives and friends you haven’t talked to for years in different parts of the world and getting the enormous pleasure of doing that? So yes, thereâs always loss and gain in change. I think it’s a very personal set of disciplines of how you adapt to that. I think you can really make this work, but I think it’s a really interesting time to look at yourself as well – and understand who and what makes us tick – and see if we can also get some emotional and personal development in this process. In a sort of very brilliant way – this is an opportunity we wouldn’t normally have.
Colin should just come and join one of our editorial meetings and you’ll see there’s plenty of fun that can be had when you are online. The last question for the evening is a really good one from Rob Liz. He says, âWhat’s the best way to deal with high-pressure, stressful online meetings?â I’m sure the two of you have had experience with this – I certainly have in the last couple of weeks. What’s your thoughts?
(Jon) Yes, I had one yesterday actually – but it was one of the most fruitful ones we had. There’s an element of stepping back – of observing yourself. In coaching you say; you’ve got the first-person position – which is you, the second person – understanding the other, and the third person is watching you and the other person having that conversation – from an observer point of view. I think we need to cultivate that – you’ve got to have a sort of slightly playful sense of self-irreverence – because these meetings can get very hectic. Often because you’re trying to make a point, you get stuck on trying to prove the other person right or wrong. You can just duck that more often than not, reflect on it, and come back a bit later. Just try and detune a little bit and develop a sense of humour, for heavenâs sake, because thatâs really helpful.
Tracey?
I agree. I think that what happens in these situations is; thereâs that saying by Warren Buffett, âYouâre caught swimming naked when the tide goes outâ – and I think now the levels of stress and pressure are showing where there’ve been fractious relationships in the physical world as well. So, I think it’s to be conscious of that (as Jon was saying), to know yourself, to know your reactions, and to really be quite focused, no matter how stressed or pressurised the meeting is, to still make sure that thereâs time to appreciate people, to thank people – I really can’t over-stress that because I think that that really makes a huge difference. It’s important that people realise that it’s not about always being soft and being nice; we have to get stuff done – we’re in a situation. Also, use those situations to build trust, to make sure that when there is trust – that things are a little bit easier to go forward and make happen.
Lovely. We are closing off now. Maybe the last couple of thoughts of what we’ve been discussing over the past hour and a bit. Jon?
I think there was an earlier question about âhow do you stay almost sane when your mind is rushing and you can’t calmâ. I think that’s probably one of the most important questions, because there are many ways that we do settle our wild minds; meditation (if you like that), walking, repetition, exercising, or journaling – journaling is a brilliant thing to do. What I would say is this is a really good time to do some of those things you might think are really crackpot to do but just to calm that mind down – because it’ll go off on its own thing, its own reality and you’ll believe it’s true. So, it’s a really good time to get a little bit of distance from that raging monster that we call our mind and just start to rediscover some other aspects – maybe richer and deeper things that are going to serve us much better beyond this. We’ve got significant existential challenges now. Letâs focus on some of the things that are really real and that will feed into our business, because at the end of the day – business is about creating value for people and that value should help them in their lives and, if you can reflect better on people and understand yourself and them better, you’re gonna do better business. Thatâs my belief.
What book, given that we can now use this time productively, would you suggest from your library – that youâd like to give to everybody whoâs listening?
I’ve got several, but I think a really nice one thatâs by Yuval Noah Harari, his 21 Lessons for the 21st Century is a really good book. He’s got a good, clear mind. It’s just really worth spending some time looking at that. There’s another really interesting book by Alain de Botton, called The School of Life, which is about rediscovering your emotional self and by emotion, I don’t mean soft; rather courage, endurance and resilience – itâs based on strong and good emotions.
Brilliant, and if you haven’t discovered Harari yet, you’ve got a treat coming up with Homo Sapiens and Homo Deus and then this is his third. Tracey, your final comments and perhaps a book youâd like to throw in outside of the readership Riptide, of course.
The book that I’ve absolutely loved (I’m not sure if it’s available in hard copy here, but it’ll certainly be available on Kindle) is The Nine Lives of Work, by Marcus Buckingham and Ashley Goodall – unbelievable thinking that really turns the conventional thinking about the world of work on its head. Very, very interesting – fascinating insights. Last thoughts: I just want to echo Jon – exhorting us all to journal. This is a fantastic time to grow in self-awareness too. It’s tough out there – this is not easy. A simple practice that really helps many people in terms of building resilience, when youâre feeling like everything’s falling on top of you, is just noting down three good things a day. What great things happened today? They don’t even have to be huge, monumental things. Journaling – getting to know yourself, getting to know yourself as a leader, emotionally, writing down three good things a day. We need to see this as an opportunity to work on ourselves and to come out the other side better.
Tracey and Jon, thank you for your contribution tonight. Sorry about going absent a little way through, but I know you carried it and it’s been a pleasure again to draw on your wisdom. My final point would be – my favourite book of the moment is The 5AM Club by Robin Sharma. It encapsulates a lot of what you’ve been talking about with reflecting and journaling, etc. I’m reminded of a saying by a French philosopher (whose name I can’t remember, but I’m sure you guys would) – âthat there’s nothing that can’t be fixed by a person sitting in a room on their own and reflectingâ and that’s often something that we just don’t have time for, but during lockdown – we certainly do.Â
Well, thank you – both of you – and thanks to the hundreds of people who were on the webinar tonight. It’s been a pleasure. I hope you have had a pleasant Wednesday evening and we look forward to the next time. Till then, cheerio.