Category: Business Continuity

Crisis! A time that always exposes ‘True Colours’…

Posted on by The Information Badger in Business, Business Continuity, Climate & Environment, Education, Online Services, Opinion, Risk, social media, Uncategorized

A week ago, on a sunny UK Spring day, the Badger sat in his conservatory reflecting on how COVID-19 has emptied the streets and impacted lives and livelihoods. The birds and creamy yellow clumps of self-seeded polyanthus in the garden provided a reminder of nature’s glory as the Badger thought about the pressures on those leading the response to the pandemic. The Badger knows from coordinating his employer’s business continuity responses to events like the 7th July 2005 London terror attacks and the 2010 volcanic ash clouds from Iceland, that decisions must be taken and a course of action set even if the information available is conflicting or fuzzy. Some will always challenge the decisions and course of action, but the Badger learned that it’s important not to become distracted or defensive. Proper lessons to be learned come from a proper post-crisis review in calmer times.

As the Badger cogitated, Cyndi Lauper’s song ‘True Colours’ came on the radio. The ‘true colours’ idiom comes from the 18th century when ships showed their country flag (‘colours’) when going into battle. Many showed a flag of a different country to make opponents think they were friendly, only to show their real flag (‘true colours’) as they attacked. The song reminded the Badger that, in his experience, the ‘true colours’ of leaders, business executives, suppliers, clients, and staff quickly move into plain sight during a business continuity crisis, sometimes producing unexpected surprises. As leaders tackle COVID-19, the Badger thinks ‘true colours’ are being exposed everywhere and the picture they paint of the modern world isn’t pretty.

The Badger decided that a few points captured his opinion on what the pandemic has exposed about the world so far, namely:

  • Modern tech is both a help and a hinderance, but without it and the resilient IT supporting institutions, businesses, individuals and economic activity, things would be apocalyptic.
  • When government, businesses, and people come together to ‘do the right thing’ awesome things of complexity and scale can be achieved in a short time.
    • In the digital age people are more profligate, selfish, impatient and prone to panic than they were 20 years ago.
  • Doctors, nurses, health care and emergency service workers do what we have always known they do – selflessly put patients first.
  • Governmental chief scientific and medical advisers are excellent, clear, and credible (at least in the UK). It is scientists, technologists, engineers and mathematicians who are at the heart of finding solutions to our problems.
  • Which news sources do you trust? Social media and broadcast news appears to dwell on negatives, spin, and those who want to complain about something. Journalists need stories not necessarily facts, but at times like this balance and trustworthiness rather than bias is crucial.
  • Life will be different when the pandemic is over. Public tolerance of globalisation, over-reliance on global supply chains, inaction on climate change, executive excess, businesses that operate with little prudence, and any resistance to ‘working from home’ for sections of society is at a low ebb and will force the hand of politicians over the coming years.

That was a week ago. Would the Badger change anything after another week of lockdown? No. Why? Because the ‘true colours’ of the pre-COVID-19 world are even more evident on a daily basis. Things must change…

Quick to blame or complain, slow to praise…

Posted on by The Information Badger in Business, Business Continuity, Education, IT Project Management, Psychology, social media, Technology, Uncategorized

If you’ve ever been asked to take on the responsibility for fixing a failing project, programme, or service delivery that’s causing serious relationship, financial, reputation or business difficulties, then you’ll know that when you take the reins lots of people will tell you about the bad things, who’s to blame, and what should have happened but didn’t. You’ll also know that far fewer people will tell you about the good things, the good people, and their good ideas to improve matters. There are always good things! They are, however, swamped by a fog of grumbles, complaints, politics and blame narratives! An experienced leader knows about this imbalance and ensures that ‘balance is restored’ by putting the right people with the right attitude in the right place to turn failure into success. After all, it’s a fully committed, positive and aligned team that really turns things around, not the person at the top!

Have you ever wondered why people tend to complain, blame, and exude negativity more than praise and positivity? The answer lies in the physiological wiring of the brain. Put simply, the emotional part of the brain processes ‘bad events’ whereas the rational part processes ‘good events. The former works much faster than the latter, which means we assign fault and blame quickly and frequently but think long and hard before giving praise. Fascinating stuff!

What triggered the Badger to think about this? Two recent events that made the Badger feel that today’s tech-dependent society has lost all sense of balance, objectivity, and community. Both events related to the COVID-19 pandemic. The first was a conversation with friends that concluded that ‘Quick to blame or complain, slow to praise’ and negativity has pervaded every facet of journalism, the broadcast media, and social media, and that ‘blame and complain’ has more noticeably become the norm in society as digital tech has boomed over the last twenty years.

The second was in the local supermarket whose shelves and frozen food cabinets were largely empty due to panic buying. Behind the Badger at the checkout, two people proudly crowed about how they had each bought two extra freezers online ‘just in case’, They then bitterly complained to a store worker about the empty shelves and blamed the supermarket chain for incompetence. They then blamed a different local supermarket chain for not having what they wanted either, and the UK and Chinese governments for letting all this happen!

The checkout operator winked. ’I think it’s just the way their brains work. One has a cough so you might not want to serve them’, the Badger said in response. The checkout queue fell silent! The Badger left the store certain that it’s time for our tech-centric society to concentrate more on praise and positivity than blame and complain. That would, however, require a rewiring of our brains.

There’s no ‘Smart Living’ without ‘Smart Working’…

Posted on by The Information Badger in Business, Business Continuity, Climate & Environment, Digital devices and the environment, Education, Internet of Things, Smart & New Technology, Uncategorized

‘Smart working’ has existed in the tech and IT industries for years. With pandemic coronavirus, many companies in many sectors will be severely disadvantage if they don’t have the capability! ‘Smart Working’ has pros and cons, but the pros dominate by far in today’s world of work. A software engineer neighbour, for example, sees nothing but benefit from ‘Smart Working’. He works permanently from home and travels just one day each week to his employer’s office or that of a client. His deadlines are the same as being in the office, but he feels much more productive, less stressed, and has a better work-life balance compared with the grind of a daily commute. He feels strongly that ‘Smart Working’ helps his carbon footprint, his employer’s carbon footprint, reduce costs for everyone, and makes handling crises like coronavirus easier. His employer trusts him not to abuse working this way – a trust he repays with unwavering loyalty. He says he’ll never go back to working permanently in an employer’s office!

The Badger embraced ‘Smart Working’ anytime, anyplace, anywhere years ago. Since leaving the corporate hamster wheel, however, the Badger’s feeling that ‘Smart Working’ will soon be the permanent way of working has strengthened. Coronavirus will surely reinforce that the days white-collar-workers must travel to and work in offices of their employer or a client are coming to an end. We’ll always work in offices, you might say! After all, Aristotle pointed out that we are social animals that need workplace interactions. The Badger’s seen some truth in this over the years, but for today’s younger tech natives the social interactions aspects of the workplace are gravitating faster and faster to the virtual world as technology advances.

It seems likely that pandemic coronavirus, environment/climate change, and heightened public awareness of the delicacy of global supply chains will drive faster change in the way we live our lives. Society could be at a turning point with ‘Smart Living’ becoming a much more dominant part of our psyche and behaviour. This will happen faster if employers henceforth adopt ‘Smart Working’ from home as the norm. When the current economic turmoil triggered by oil and coronavirus abates, political and business leaders will realise attitudes on how people should work in order to mitigate risk in the modern global world must change. ‘Smart Working’ and ‘Smart Living’ should go hand in hand. Without the former there can be no latter.

So, now’s the time to press the case for ‘Smart Working’ if your employer doesn’t currently have it. Remember that ‘Smart Living’ is more about the way you think, behave and take action than it is about the Internet of Things and the interconnectivity of gadgets. As Mr Spock would say, ‘It’s only logical that ‘Smart Working’ has to be a core component of ‘Smart Living’ and we need both to address our problems’.

‘We are all doomed!’… No we are not…

Posted on by The Information Badger in Business Continuity, Education, Offshoring, Opinion, Uncategorized

This blog item – the 100th since the blog’s inception – arose from a conversation with someone grumbling about their employer offshoring software development and IT support to India. They used the phrase ‘We are all doomed!’ from the UK Dads Army TV series and ignored the Badger’s ‘No we are not’ riposte.

The Badger remembers ‘We are all doomed!’ being frequent refrain of UK IT staff in coffee-point discussions during the surge of offshoring to India in the early part of this century. UK IT staff were initially sceptical and dismissive of the capabilities in India, and hence reluctant to move work offshore. Offshoring, however, was a necessity driven by market forces and staff eventually realised that ‘No we are not’ was the right riposte to ‘We are all doomed!’. Today, globalised IT work is a norm. The Badger was part of this journey because ~20 years ago he helped to acquire a small software company in Bangalore and then monitored it proudly as it blossomed into a very large, successful, global IT delivery centre.

That small Bangalore company was full of young Indian staff who were hungry to learn and succeed. It was clear from the outset that they would flourish after being acquired because they had an impressive commitment and attitude that contrasted markedly with an ‘entitlement culture’ evident in some UK youngsters at the time. Today, however, things seem different.  Based on the number of UK millennials who want to work hard, learn, acquire skills, and be successful that the Badger meets, that ‘entitlement culture’ appears to have waned. Coupled with advancing technology and changing geo-political environments,  perhaps we’ll see some retrenchment of offshoring and IT globalisation in the future.

The Badger thinks that ‘We are all doomed!’ has also become an unspoken undercurrent to matters relating to the potential coronavirus pandemic in recent weeks, especially in social and broadcast media and the press which seem to have erupted with a questionable mix of instant opinion, misinformation, grumbles, individual experiences, and comments on country responses. Even stock markets have taken flight, ostensibly because – surprise, surprise – no one can predict the future. The Badger takes the hopefully rational view that we are definitely not doomed! Why would we be when we have overcome challenges from ‘The Millennium Bug’, SARS, Swine Flu, Bird Flu, and Ebola in the last 20 years?

The Badger does feel, however, that coronavirus is the starkest reminder yet of the downside risks of the relentless march of globalisation. Perhaps this combined with climate change will mark a turning point for globalisation? Time will tell.

Finally, just remember that humans are excellent creative problem solvers, so if someone suggests ‘We are all doomed!’ just say ‘No we are not’. Then playfully ask their view on what would happen if social media, global communication, and internet services collapsed. They’ll look you in the eye and scream ‘We are all doomed!’ much, much louder…