Category: Business

Big Tech: Is it in turmoil?

Posted on by The Information Badger in Business, Change, Information Technology, Transformation, Human Resources

The Badger joined a local community group on Facebook during the pandemic. This week he left it because postings have become dominated by niff-naff and trivia.  Although it’s been interesting to see how posts to the group have changed over time, the Badger’s now got better things to do than see content that ranges from requests for spare cardboard boxes to cat-sitting!  What’s this got to do with Big Tech in turmoil? The link is subtle, but it’s real; it’s the act of change and leaving.

Big Tech – a convenient phrase for companies that provide online services that the public uses in daily life – has been announcing significant job cuts over the last six months. Meta, for example, has recently announced further major layoffs to take effect by the end of April and May 2023, and, as the Badger writes,  Amazon have announced a cut of another 9000 jobs.  According to Computerworld, the pace of job cuts will rise across the entire tech sector throughout this year. It’s a view that the Badger shares.

Many have commented on the reasons for these layoffs – see, for example, here – but fundamentally it’s really simple. Big Tech is having to change to adapt to a new world, market, and economic reality. Change is painful, just look at Twitter, especially for those who lose their jobs with their employer. What’s happening with Big Tech, however, is just part of the circle of life for any commercial organisation, large or small, in any market sector.

Big Tech is not immune to having to deal with decisions taken during the pandemic on staffing levels that haven’t worked out. Nor is it immune to the cutbacks and changing behaviours of the consumers, businesses, and advertisers that underpin their business models. It’s not immune to ever-growing competition from peers and rivals, tightening regulation, inflation and rising costs, and the need for adopting cleverer automation to keep operational efficiency at a peak. The latter alone drives a need for fewer people. The pandemic, geopolitical events, and changing world markets have made some kind of reset in Big Tech companies inevitable with some employees, as always, part of the fallout.

So, is Big Tech in turmoil? No. It’s just going through a part of the circle of life that all businesses go through. It’s worth remembering that when big oak trees shed their acorns, some of those acorns go on to become new oak trees. Some of those losing their jobs will start new businesses that flourish, and others will go on to spread their knowledge and experience more widely through taking new jobs outside the tech sector. The Badger believes there’s a certainty for those being let go in Big Tech’s reset, namely, that they as individuals will cope. Why? Because as the dominant species on our planet, humans are fundamentally resilient, adaptable, and resourceful.

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Facts are facts and will not disappear on account of your likes…

Posted on by The Information Badger in Business, Leadership & Management, Learning, social media

Many years ago, after completing the turnaround and handover of a troublesome major project to a difficult client, the Badger went on holiday in sunnier climes for some rest and recreation. His family had insisted on complete digital disconnection from the world of work during the break, and so the Badger was fully refreshed, keen to catch up with colleagues, and champing at the bit for another challenge on the first morning back at work after the holiday. Shortly after settling into a backlog of emails, however, the Badger’s phone rang – the CEO wanted to see him straight away. With some trepidation, the Badger immediately went to their office in another part of the building.

The CEO greeted the Badger jovially, ushered him to a sofa, and then got straight to the point. A major contract on the company’s routine monitoring list had suddenly escalated as having serious delivery and contractual problems. The CEO said that they were being inundated by different opinions about what had gone wrong and what action was needed. They used a phrase uttered by Clint Eastwood in the film ‘The Dead Pool’, namely ‘Opinions are like a**holes, everyone’s got one’’, to highlight their frustration that opinions were making it difficult to get to the facts they needed to decide a course of action that was in the company’s best interest. The Badger left the CEO’s office with a new task, namely, to establish the facts!     

Having been involved in many problem situations, the Badger had already learned many things, two of which were pertinent to his new task. The first was that the cause of problems rarely sits with just one of line or project management, inter-business unit rivalry, financial controls, people issues, plans and processes, client relationships, requirement and engineering flaws, or contract ambiguities. It’s normally a combination of many of these factors. The second was that having a good grasp of the overall facts was essential to formulating a recovery strategy and action plan that had solid foundations. To get to the facts meant cutting through the opinions, half-truths, distortions, agendas, and finger-pointing of others, by being the completely objective grown up in the room.

So, if you find yourself having to make important decisions during the maelstrom of an escalating problem, then be steadfast, focused, and do what’s needed to ensure you take these decisions based on facts not opinions. Good leaders and managers remember that Nehru once said ‘Facts are facts and will not disappear on account of your likes’.  Nehru died in 1964, but these words remain relevant in today’s world dominated by the clamour of instant opinion from social and mainstream media.  Long-live decision-making based on facts, because without this the future is one of perpetually worsening  chaos!

Walking out of a meeting with a client…

Posted on by The Information Badger in Business, Delivery, Information Technology, IT Project Management, Leadership & Management, Learning, Project Management

‘Meetings, meetings, meetings!’, a delivery leader exclaimed irritably after a session with a client who had given them the verbal hair-dryer treatment about an imminent milestone and its associated payment. ‘They don’t want to pay, even though we’ll have met the milestone in full’, the leader grumbled before berating themselves for not having walked out of the meeting. The Badger smiled. Memories of his own difficult meetings with clients came flooding back.

Notwithstanding the comprehensive training in meetings and negotiations that companies provide, it’s real experience in difficult client meetings that hones your  approach to getting the right outcome. The Badger’s approach developed over the years to have essentially three things at its core. The first was that the client is not always right, and that being in command of irrefutable facts, and using them calmly, consistently, and assertively rather than petulantly and confrontationally, is crucial to getting the desired outcome. The second was mental resilience, to have as much background to the client’s position as possible, and to decide tactics that are unwaveringly focused on the desired outcome, before the start of the meeting. The third was to always have a walking out option in the kitbag as a weapon of last resort, but not for use to assuage personal ego or frustration.

Had the Badger ever walked out of a client meeting, the delivery leader asked? Yes, but rarely. One occasion was some months after a system with a fractious delivery history had become operational with a client’s end-users. The meeting was to a) formalise that the delivery contract’s deliverables had all been delivered, and b) that the client would make the final payment due and close the contract. It should have been a formality, because the client’s staff had already confirmed everything had been delivered to contract and to their satisfaction. Item (a) was indeed confirmed at the meeting, but the client refused, without giving any reason, to pay the outstanding money.

During a break, the Badger and his team agreed we were wasting our time because the client had no intention of paying. After the break, the Badger asked the client to confirm that although no contractual deliverables remained, they would not pay the money due. They confirmed this, and the Badger got up and left followed by his team. The shock on the client’s team faces was palpable. It was not something they’d anticipated!  Payment was received three days later after the Badger’s CEO phoned the chairman of the client’s Board of Directors to complain and threaten litigation if users continued to use the system.  

With a twinkle in their eye, the delivery leader looked at the Badger, grinned broadly, and said ‘I was wise not to have walked out. If I had, the client might have thought I was a petulant, over-sensitive, snowflake with no backbone’.  The Badger laughed aloud…

Think differently about your performance appraisal with your boss…

Posted on by The Information Badger in Business, Delivery, Education, Human Resources, Information Technology, Leadership & Management, Learning

The reactions of people who’ve just had a performance appraisal with their boss varies enormously and also highlights how different we are as individuals. Personal reactions, of course, cover a wide spectrum. The Badger’s experience, however, is that while a person’s demeanour and body language says a lot about their reaction, most people share little more than the odd comment about their appraisal with others. There are always, of course, people who think they’ve been treated poorly and say so to anyone who will listen. In the Badger’s experience, such individuals tend to be self-centred, averagely talented, poor listeners, and they normally have egotistic or narcistic personalities.  These individuals, and those at the other end of the spectrum who are just downright lazy, unproductive, and permanently negative,  tend to share their displeasure widely and keep HR functions busy with claims of unfair treatment.

A youngster in their first job since leaving University 15 months ago whined to the Badger this week that their appraisal had been a shock and unfair. The youngster, hungry for rapid career and salary progression, unfortunately failed to recognise that they haven’t adjusted to working life as well as their peers. The Badger explained this, and in the course of doing so remembered some wisdom from a training course he attended many years ago. On that course, a behaviour expert, building on the sport coaching work of Tim Gallway, emphasised that we should think about individual performance using the simple equation ‘Performance = Talent – Interferences’. If someone has 100% Talent, then their Performance is never 100% because there are always Interferences from personal and/or organisational factors. Personal interferences come, for example, from lifestyle, health, family and/or caring responsibilities. Organisational interferences come, for example, from skill set mismatches with work role, adequacy of role definition, relationships with leaders and work colleagues, organisational bureaucracy, and factors like organisational dynamism and workforce stagnation if business growth is poor.

The behaviour expert’s key message was that everyone has Interferences, so no one can ever perform at 100%! Interestingly, they used the same equation to describe the performance of a company. In this case, Talent represents a company’s portfolio of  products and services, and Interferences are largely the policies, processes, and  controls that influence the delivery of the portfolio to clients. Bigger companies tend to have more Interferences than smaller ones, and no company ever performs at 100%, although clever accounting and expectation management often masks this!

So, think about your performance appraisal in the terms above. Your Talent is constant, so your Performance dips when Interferences rise. Eventually Interferences will reach a level that makes you feel like doing something different with your life. It’s very empowering when this happens, because it definitively changes the way you approach your appraisal with your boss.  

There’s no such thing as a grouchy old person…

Posted on by The Information Badger in Business, Change, Diversity, Information Technology, Life

The Badger has noted a rise recently in the ‘suggested for you’ items pushed to him on Facebook. Normally these items are simply ignored, but the other day when ‘Dumfries and Galloway! What’s going on?’ appeared as ‘suggested for you’ the Badger was intrigued. What had he been doing online recently that could make the algorithms behind the scenes conclude this might be of interest? After wracking his brain for a minute, the answer didn’t materialise. May be Facebook is desperately pushing anything to increase the time users stay on the platform? Perhaps, because user stickiness is, after all, core to social media business models, and Facebook will, no doubt, use whatever techniques it can to make money and counter waning user popularity.

The attention-grabber with the ‘Dumfries & Galloway’ item was simply the following headline text:   

‘There’s no such thing as a grouchy old person. The truth is, once you get old you stop being polite and start being honest.’

It made the Badger – who strives to be polite, honest, and never grouchy (although some may disagree) – chuckle, reflect, and realise that the sentiment conveyed by this text applies throughout our working lives and not just in our dotage.

Think back to when you left school, college, or university and entered the workforce. No matter how full of enthusiasm you were, you probably deferred to the views and decisions of colleagues ten or more years older than yourself because they were ‘old’ and more experienced. Now roll forward ten years to when you had married, acquired a large house mortgage, and perhaps a couple of young children. You were now part of the ranks at work that you once considered ‘old’, but you were still probably careful of openly disagreeing with ten-year older colleagues in senior positions to avoid putting your employment and salary income at risk.

Roll forward yet another ten years to when your mortgage is no longer a millstone, you have some financial security, and the children are finding their own way in life. You realise your career has plateaued, those ten-years older are retiring, that leaving the workforce is the next big personal milestone, and that you have nothing to fear from saying what you really think. Directness, impatience, and frustration come to the surface, and younger colleagues think you are just a grouchy ‘old’ person, which isn’t the case. You’ve just reached the part of the lifecycle where you realise that you can be completely true to yourself, and that politeness and saluting the corporate mast have their limits.

Always remember that throughout your career and whatever the role you have in your organisation, you are always ‘old’ to some. The ‘Dumfries and Galloway; What’s going?’ attention-grabber is a progressive truth, because there is no predefined age when you become ‘old’. It’s worth remembering that.

The ‘Decade of Great Correction’…

Posted on by The Information Badger in Business, Life, Psychology

The Badger chuckled after chatting to an elderly lady going to the shops on a mobility scooter. They had commented on not only the state of the world and the impact it was having on them personally, but also on the puritanism and woke culture that’s made them cautious about talking to strangers in case they say something that causes offence. They also complained that people are too ready to accept what they read in the press and on social media, and that this meant we are all doomed before the decade is out! This prompted the Badger to cogitate on how historians might ultimately label our current decade.

Thoughts were consolidated over an americano in a local coffee shop. The Badger concluded two things. Firstly, that the online world hasn’t changed the basic fact that fretting about the state of the real world and its personal impact is an inherent part of both life and the human psyche. Online facilities have merely expanded the universe of what we can worry about! Secondly, that historians will label the 2020’s as the ‘Decade of Great Correction’ because the enormous breadth of difficult circumstances is fundamentally changing behaviours.

The COVID-19 pandemic has triggered seismic waves of change across social, economic, and political fronts. Personal attitudes, values, behaviours, and habits are changing as a result, and the ramifications will reverberate through the rest of the decade. The tech sector is not immune to these changes. Peloton and Zoom, for example, are already encountering tougher times, streaming services are worried about subscriber levels, social media platforms are coming under increasing regulatory scrutiny and geo-political influence, and consumers are savvier about the online world.

The Russia/Ukraine conflict has caused multidimensional disruption contributing to a dramatic rise in inflation everywhere. Individuals and businesses alike are struggling to survive with soaring energy prices, something that’s likely to persist given superpower relationships do not seem conducive to stability in the world. Overlaid on this is an unfolding global recession, an unwinding of the quantitative easing that has damaged people’s prudency regarding personal savings since the 2009 financial crash, and rising interest rates that will stress those who borrowed heavily during the era of cheap money. And then there’s climate change…

A correction in most people’s lifestyles is afoot (see an unusual sign here, for example). Many will retrench from consumerism and materialism to the same core priorities as our ancestors, namely shelter, putting food on the table, and protecting loved ones. This will impact industrial, social, and political dynamics for years to come. The ‘Decade of Great Correction’ thus seems an apt descriptor for the 2020s!

The Badger finished his coffee. He left the shop wondering if it would still be there once their next utility bill arrived.

Troublesome projects…and Bertrand Russell

Posted on by The Information Badger in Business, Delivery, Information Technology, Project Management

Line managers always get pressure from senior executives to take swift action when a project they’re responsible for experiences serious difficulty. Line managers, especially inexperienced ones, often assuage this pressure by quickly changing the Project Manager. This often-knee-jerk response doesn’t always fix the problem because although the new appointee may be conveniently available, they may not have the breadth of personal, commercial, delivery and technical characteristics needed, or be properly empowered. One of the Badger’s experiences of being appointed as ‘the new project manager’ by a panicking line manager proved not only to be reminder of the strength and diversity of character needed to turnaround a troubled project, but also a memorable introduction to Bertrand Russell.

The project in question was not meeting its contract with an international prime contractor who was delivering a huge strategic programme for their end customer. The Badger’s remit from the line manager was ‘fix everything’ because the finances are perilous, and litigation is looming. Senior executives from all the organisations involved had met in a last ditch bid to avoid an expensive, embarrassing, catastrophe for all concerned. They had agreed to leadership changes and so the Badger found himself appointed at the same time as a new opposite number in the prime contractor.

Our first engagement shortly after being appointed was at a meeting involving both of our respective incumbent team leads, ostensibly as an opportunity for them to air their thoughts and feelings about the contract’s difficulties. The two teams were polarised, divergent, defensive, inconsistent, and in blame mode from the outset! After a particularly fractious exchange, the Badger’s new prime opposite number called a halt for a coffee break and took the Badger to one side. The badger was asked if he was familiar with Bertrand Russell and two of his famous quotes, namely:   

  • The fundamental cause of trouble is that in the modern world the stupid are cocksure while the intelligent are full of doubt.
  • Collective fear stimulates herd instinct and tends to produce ferocity toward those who are not regarded as members of the herd.

The Badger said no. His counterpart then used these quotes to make the point that if we could both see the problems and resolutions but were full of doubt and worry about being different to our incumbent teams, then nothing would change, and litigation beckoned. We agreed that we were not stupid, not members of the herd, only focused on finding solutions, unmotivated by personal kudos, and that we expected to take  unpopular decisions. Following this conversation, we both did difficult things with our teams and the turnaround started.

So, remember this. To fix a troublesome project needs a focused and resilient character, intelligence and a breadth of skills, and some awareness of Bertrand Russell’s wisdom!Anyone full of self-doubt or worried about being an outsider is unlikely to succeed.

Returning to balance in supply chains…

Posted on by The Information Badger in Business, Business Continuity, Information Technology, Leadership & Management, Supply Chain, Transformation

Every commercial enterprise and every public sector organisation has a supply chain. When the supply chain works well no one really notices, but when it’s disrupted, for whatever reason, all hell can break loose unleashing all kinds of reactions, realisations, and changed behaviours to deal with the situation. The Covid-19 pandemic and conflict in Ukraine illustrate this rather neatly. They have shown to governments, businesses, and the general public alike, that global supply chains cannot be taken for granted, are  fraught with risk, and can have dramatic economic and inflationary impact when seriously disrupted.

Global supply chains are at the heart of the functioning of the developed world, and the Chartered Institute of Purchasing and Supply highlights some of their advantages and disadvantages.  Globalisation has meant greater exposure to the risk of economic, political, and financial instabilities, health and natural disasters, and to the logistics,  communication, security, and lack of direct control risks that come with far off places. This truth is plain to see as governments and businesses, and we as individuals, deal with the ramifications of the pandemic and geo-political events. It’s unsurprising,  therefore, that much is going on in governmental and business circles to return supply chains to some better balance in order to reduce risk and improve economic resilience. As pointed out here, supply chain reshoring, where this is possible, and the establishment of multiple supply paths with overtly ‘friendly’ countries are being actively progressed to improve future business and economic continuity.  

The Badger’s harboured a feeling for some time that our reliance on complex global supply chains was a problem waiting to happen, and that some kind of ‘event’ would force some retrenchment. It seems that the pandemic and Ukraine have been the trigger  ‘event’, but if this hadn’t been so then it was probably just a matter of time before climate-change weather disasters or military belligerence between superpowers had the same effect.  There have, of course, been global supply chains for centuries – think back, for example, to the Silk Road and the Spice Route. What’s happening in the world today is not their death, but a ‘returning to balance’ that should provide a more balanced, baseline template for the future.

Decades ago, the Badger ran a project that included building hundreds of bespoke computing devices whose LCD screens were produced by just one company in Japan. All went smoothly until the Japanese company unexpectedly stopped manufacturing the screens. The ramifications took months to sort out. The subsequent review and lessons-learned report not only highlighted flaws in the Badger’s company’s approach to managing suppliers the other side of the world, but also recommended that the company’s approach to international supply chains was overhauled to ‘return to balance’ . The phrase is worth remembering and seems very pertinent to what’s happening on the world stage with global supply chains today.

Innovation, USPs, and the herd instinct…

Posted on by The Information Badger in Business, Change, Education, Information Technology, Innovation, Learning

Have you ever listened to leaders talking in person, or via video or teleconference, about innovation, unique selling points (USPs) that make the company stand out from the crowd, and slogans to be used to grab the attention of potential customers? The answer is  ‘probably’, a word used to great effect in Carlsberg advertising campaigns  that trace their roots back to 1973. The Badger’s sat through many such talks over the years, but one more than twenty-five years ago generated a memorable insight that’s still relevant today.

At a senior staff gathering in a London hotel conference centre, the Group Chief Executive gave a lengthy presentation that announced and justified the company’s move beyond its software, systems development, and systems  integration roots into outsourcing and offshoring services. The presentation not only boasted about this being innovation, but also it conveyed new USPs. Many present were, like the Badger, experienced, delivery-centric people who felt the assertion that this was innovation was highly dubious, and that the new USPs were aspirational and not underpinned by any reality. The audience understood the IT market was changing, but they reacted badly to the claim this move was innovation because competitors were already way-ahead, and it felt like the company was just following the herd rather than playing to its true strengths.

In the hotel bar afterwards, a subsidiary executive provided some wise words of insight when tackled informally about the presentation. They pointed out that although the business world worships innovation as necessary for survival and growth, the reality is that true innovation is rare and it’s imitation that is the endemic driver. They used examples of the new products and approaches emerging across the IT industry at the time to illustrate that these were born out of imitation and not innovation. The executive also highlighted that since the herd mentality is a feature of human behaviour, no one should ever be surprised that companies follow the herd and assert USPs that are primarily just slogans to differentiate in business conversations with potential clients. The bigger a company, the executive asserted, the more the slogan is influenced by spin and market trends, and the more tenuous the link with raw capability. This has coloured the Badger’s calibration of company sales and marketing messaging ever since, and the executive’s innovation, USP and herd mentality insight still resonates in today’s world in which we are bombarded with information relentlessly, and organisations do everything they can to grab, keep, and capitalise on our attention. So, just remember that if something claims to be an innovation today, then be sceptical because imitation is endemic and true innovation is scarce. Similarly, always explore any asserted USP to see if it passes the ‘unique’ test amongst industry peers, because it’s the herd instinct rather than uniqueness that dominates the world of business.

Speaking truth to power in a commercial organisation…

Posted on by The Information Badger in Assurance, Business, IT Project Management, Leadership, Learning

The Badger was reminded of the dangers of speaking truth to those in power while talking to a friend at a social event recently. While sharing stories of the ying and yang of company life, his friend mentioned that they had been quietly tapped on the shoulder to say that they were at risk of redundancy. The Badger’s friend, with many years of loyal service, explained that their relationship with their boss had deteriorated, and that their boss was manipulating their exit because they had been consistently and relentlessly telling them the truth about project difficulties and necessary corrective actions. The boss, apparently, didn’t want to accept the truth, the difficulties were getting worse, and the Badger’s friend’s level of frustration suggested that both individuals had come to the end of their tethers!

Speaking truth to power is fraught with danger and to minimise its risks requires not only having an objective understanding of the personality and priorities of the person holding the power, but also good awareness of organisational politics, culture, and other factors. Without this, someone speaking truth to power might not foresee or prepare for the personal consequences of possible retaliation. These points were made to the Badger by his own boss many years ago during a coaching session. Their advice has influenced the way the Badger has spoken truth to power ever since.

One crucial piece of advice was that when speaking your truth, you must fully understand that you are either challenging something the person with power is responsible for, or their view or opinion of a situation or circumstance. It is thus essential to focus on the issue rather than on criticising the person or others. It is also essential, before you speak, to think through not only the possible retaliations and negative consequences for yourself, but also your gameplan should these materialise. If you don’t embrace these points then you may be ignored, your frustration will fester,  and you will be both flummoxed and unprepared should someone, for example from HR, tap you on the shoulder because you’re ‘a problem’. The Badger’s boss commented that anyone speaking truth to power must themselves partake in the gamesmanship that is inherent in the functioning of any sizeable commercial organisation.

Good leaders and managers, of course, want open communication and to hear truths spoken by peers and subordinates. Indeed, many cultivate dispassionate, objective, and dependable trusted advisors who tell them the truth. The least effective, on the other hand, only hear what they want to hear and are dismissive of truths from others. Unfortunately, the Badger’s friend had not foreseen the dangers of speaking truth to leaders. They have, however, learned to think before speaking, to always consider the potential personal consequences beforehand, and to have a pre-prepared game plan to look after your interests if you get a tap on the shoulder. Speaking truth to power requires gamesmanship…