All,

For a very quick update after what has been one of those weeks…

 Firstly a few people brought up my heartbreak hill email, it has almost been a year. Strictly speaking, if we were to apply the mathematical model laid out to the letter of the law our working assumption should be that the CV related disruption will last another 18 months (actually more per the formula). I’ve avoided sending an update firstly because my take is that we’ve firmly been in the “hope” part of the society wide emotional cycle (in the UK at least) so no-one wants to hear a voice saying the disruption might last a while longer. Second, because it’s not clear to me what actions we should be taking in light of the insight.

 I’ve subscribed to an excellent economic cycle forecast (US centric) since 2008. Interestingly their view is that the disruption will rumble on for a while yet, but for a very specific reason – supply chain issues, and the ripple out impact on inflation. They’ve been consistent in this view since March 2020. In simple terms you can’t get the handyman to build your garden shed if the world has run out of timber. Meanwhile the shortage of timber will drive the price up, and they believe in this case quickly put a cap on demand keeping business activity depressed. The garden shed becomes too expensive so you decide not to build it. Either way the handyman who was really busy in the first year of the pandemic runs out of work. This example isn’t that hypothetical. We’ve a friend who was an Easyjet pilot, set up a business that was going gangbusters building garden sheds, only for the price of lumber to rocket forcing him out of that business. Same for the timber farm house building in Northern Ireland. The surging price of timber has made it uneconomic.

These supply chain type issues are hitting our business as well. We’ve bought quite a bit of kit to stockpile over the last month as our suppliers are indicating there is major trouble ahead. If you’ve been watching the news you’ll have noticed that core inflation in the US just hit the highest level since the 1970s. Gulp…

In terms of other news, the last two weeks saw more resignations than any period in the history of our firm. Even more unusual quite a few people seemed to be making sideways or backwards career moves and willing to take a pay cut (or significant pay cut) to move. We’re talking absolute numbers here, obviously we’re a bigger company.

Looking back a month, in the build up to the 7-Peaks challenge I highlighted that participation (in terms of the % of staff who made a donation) was the lowest we’d seen in 15+ years running these sorts of charity events. A few of you thought I was pulling a guilt trip. Actually I was highlighting that (in my mind) it looked like we’d a major cultural / social integrity problem in the human fabric of the firm where the proportion of people who “felt” part of the team was at an all time low. It definitely provided me with some food for thought, in particular regarding the social and identity roles that the work environment fulfils in people’s lives, and the impact of long term forced WFH during a period of high background community stress.. One view is that we (we being the “team” or “community”) is not longer fulfilling that key social need and people feel abandoned in a time of need (or at least left with an emotional void that needs filled).

 A few of you have sent me a couple of different spins on what seems now like a global business phenomena.. its not just us:

How employers can prepare for the ‘great resignation’ (fastcompany.com)

Interestingly, the feedback in exit interviews seems to be that the feeling of isolation, getting left out of conversations, and the like, are primary drivers, vs the view in these articles that we’re about to see a major rebalance towards family life, etc. Also, friction with a manager or due to organisational changes are consistent themes. It almost feels like the good stuff that comes with being part of a team has been diluted and the prickly stuff has got magnified. People feel that we’ve let them down.

In any event, to provide clarity on one stress point, please let your team members know that our long term plan is that we’ll switch to one day WFH for everyone who wants it (likely Friday’s) when the time comes to go back to the office.. Caveat: barring key roles where people need to be at a specific location (e.g. DCO or onsite). We’re also working through T&Cs for a number of people who have moved out of inner city locations to become long term remote workers. On that front our leaning (within reason) is to accommodate, not least as the people involved have already demonstrated that they are very effective when working from home. We will also lay out a spectrum in between, and if WFH Friday’s work really well WFH Monday and Friday is a very small step.

We’ve also kicked off a number of initiatives on the social and travel side (which are tightly integrated). Some simple stuff, for example making sure that everyone on the support team who wants to travel has the opportunity to spend a month in London. This in now in motion, we also just signed the lease on another corporate apartment in London to facilitate. Travel on the London <-> Belfast axis has ramped up in the last six weeks. Quite a few senior people on the New York team have been pushing hard to travel to London and Belfast. To date we held off on approving, but will lift the restriction from July 1st. All voluntary to be clear. One bit of news from the G7 is that we should expect the UK/Europe -> US travel corridor to open sooner rather than later also. In a similar vein we plan to have the October board meeting in Belfast. As with WFH we will not pressure anyone who doesn’t want to do business travel to fly for at least the next year.

All of this goes back to my first point, expect disruption in the medium term, but the onus needs to be on figuring out how to operate and thrive (as best as possible) within that context.

The standout event last week was the Colo CTO forum. The feedback was that is was the best technology event we’ve ever ran as a firm. Tim & I reckon it was the best any business we’ve been involved with has put on since March 2007. All over Zoom. Congrats to the team – great effort.

There is a more subtle point though. When were were in the process to buy Fixnetix it was very notable that aside from Jake & Shaun, everyone we were talking to in DXC preferred to leave their cameras off on video calls. We could say the same of a couple of other firms we looked at over the winter. With one target we still haven’t managed to get the CEO on video in almost 12 months off on and off engagement. It’s disconcerting. This pattern continues, we’ve had a few calls with another prospective target in the last month – every time we speak they’ve a different excuse for not turning the camera on. Meanwhile, each passing week myself and others in Options are having a richer set of external video meetings. I spoke with four top industry CEOs last week. The point of course, in a period of unprecedented upheaval the folks who embrace the change and new context with vigour tend to have a big advantage, equally its surprising how many people dig their heels in and resist the tide to the bitter end.

And finally, security popped up again. The recent wave of ransomeware attacks have brought cybersecurity to the top of the agenda in every Fortune 500 board room and even the Putin – Biden meeting. Our value proposition is based on being number one in our sector for security, letting the market know we’re number one for security, and having the SOC certificates to prove it. Our clients are amongst the hottest cyber targets on the planet so being number one means being seriously (seriously) on top of our game. It feels like we’ve slipped back a notch since Covid and need to re-up our efforts.

As always let me know if you’ve any questions.

Thanks,
Danny

(Apologies for any typos.. damn auto-correct)…