Last year, I learned the alphabet
Revisiting the alphabet soups that we’ve drank in 2020 and what I learned so far…
Strong, prosperous, and lucky (link).
Numerically auspicious with semblance to perfect vision, these predictions for the year 2020 sounds nothing short of an insult to the realities that we faced this year. Not chastising the off-tangent predictions by the celebrity Feng Shui Master, 2020 is definitely not the year that we dreamt of in 2019.
It’s difficult to mince out positive words to describe 2020.
Many businesses closed-shop affecting millions of families globally in just a short-span of time. What many thought as a transitory period suddenly became the new normal affecting trade, education, and even the way we live.
Albeit the catastrophic economic and financial impact of the crisis, the lessons on resiliency brought about by the pandemic cannot be discounted. No warnings with a few signals — 2020 definitely came as a drill to test wits, judgments and decisions.
Today I sit down in solitude in our once noisy office.
Not the typical year when most of us in business have set our big, audacious goals. While strong signals since December 2019 have been pointing towards a dark brewing storm in 2020, it is irrational to presume the worst as we plan for 2020. And yet, here we are, taking cautious steps instead of massive leaps.
Instead of doing a review of 2020 that I intended, there’s much more lessons to share than stories to tell. If there’s anything that I really learned this year, alphabet it is.
Managing through uncertainty
In the middle of March, after the widespread coronavirus infection in the country, the Philippine government announced that the country will be put under a lockdown. Since then, we’ve been in one of the longest lockdowns globally classified with a plethora of CQs that the government can think of.
Lockdowns are reactive strategies. Let’s use house fires as an analogy to the current situation to make things simple.
When fire is small and detected early, the reaction can be as easy as putting it off using a fire extinguisher or even a bucket of water. In reality though, we often fail to detect small house fires resulting in a much bigger fire. Here, we failed to react because we failed to detect.
With bigger fires, losses (not just financially, but also emotionally and psychologically) begin to grow and nearby houses begin to worry and evacuate. At this rate, it is impossible not to be detected but the burn speed depends on a lot of factors (e.g., wind, house materials, etc.). The speed we react is crucial in preventing a spreading house fire. Again, we failed to react fast enough before the virus started to spread.
The concept of agility in business relies on making quick decisive actions that balances the risks that we take and the risks that we reject. With so much information available, the ability to filter the signals from the noise is a crucial skill to be able to detect and react fast enough to the new information that we’re getting.
Just as the government had to seesaw on the lockdown classifications based on their risk assessments, the same applies to businesses. While there’s a long winding debate and study to support the refocusing on long-term value — somehow, the pandemic has brought many of us back into square one.
So the million dollar question is this — does it make sense to start a business today?
I get asked this question so often and I strongly believe that this is such a great time to start a business if you can afford to. However, this answer is nuanced. Unless you can afford to land bank during these times, it only makes sense when the budding business can ROI in less than a year’s time. Things change fast enough, if you can’t ROI in less than a year, you might end up missing the train.
Managing through uncertainty is not something that we’ve learned in school. Even our senior colleagues in business would find it difficult to find a playbook that mimics the scenarios that we have today.
Clarity in messaging
A few weeks after the lockdown was announced, the government quickly rambled and formed a task force which we now know as the IATF. From there on, a lot of other task forces were formed to address each issue.
Communication is such a problem in any organization. Much more when the message gets passed down and announced by different government agencies. If you remember the pass-the-message game that we’ve always been playing either as a school activity or for fun, somehow, you can understand where all these miscommunications might have started.
Organizational development has changed a lot as we entered into the various phases of the industrial revolution. From a hierarchical structural to an almost flat hierarchy, organizations have continually evolved.
But one aspect remains — the existence of committees.
Despite all the conversations about breaking silos and improving cross functional communication, the reality is that at some point, the locus of communication still tends to go back to a series of hierarchies with so-called committees or task forces. But as we’ve learnt from observing government communications thus far, it is clear how things can continually go wrong even with several task forces set-up.
Messaging during uncertain times plays a key role in tempering stakeholder responses. Be it our clients, employees, or regulators — delivering a clear, concise, and honest response provides the necessary stability that our stakeholders need from us.
Clear and concise messaging had long been the golden rule in formal communications. This is easy to follow. But, can we really be honest?
Passing the ball
It started with a tweet and suddenly everybody learned that our regarded health secretary dropped the ball for the purchase of Pfizer vaccine for the coronavirus. There’s been a lot of finger pointing since then, but what’s clear is that someone really dropped the ball and the EUA for the Pfizer vaccine might get delayed.
In an ideal world, teams work together and on the same page. I can still remember working on several projects in the past where we’ve set-up “war rooms” to brainstorm, strategize, and collaborate. In these situations, great teamwork plays a big role in getting shits done on time and in time.
However, the word “teamwork” got a bit of stretch with the lockdown. The lockdown accelerated the actualization of working from home through the inevitable need for people to stay home, save lives.
WfH sounds nice, but the workplace ain’t catching up.
Considering the gruesome traffic situation and the costly daily commute, working from home is definitely a welcome change. But quickly we realize that it’s not the same. The daily banters, team meals, and timely catch-ups — what works in the office, fails to work in the virtual workspace.
Workplace culture and new joiner enculturation strives to keep up as the office interaction shifts virtual. Teams take time to build relationships and trust to work like a well-oiled machine rather than individual gears and parts. Despite the advancements in technological solutions to bridge the gap, the shift towards virtualization requires a fundamental shift in the way teams and cultures are formed.
When the ball keeps being passed, someone ends up dropping the ball.
Working from home had shifted work dynamics a lot more independent. While breakout rooms are becoming a “thing”, the classic vigor of getting “locked-up” in a war room just cannot be replicated. Tasks need to become more granular and assigned individually making project management a bit more tricky.
With tasks dependency being passed from one remote worker to another, when will the ball be dropped along the project’s path?
Lessons doesn’t stop here
Vaccines are currently being deployed, except not in the Philippines since we dropped the ball, with some promising results. While we start this year with some positivity, it’s still too early to be cheery as mutant strain spreads much faster than ever.
If there’s anything that we should learn from Feng Shui Master Hanz, stick to what you believe in. As he says, “Hindi pa tapos ang 2020” (link). Sadly, 2020 ended.
Lastly, I wish everyone a happy new year!
About UpSmart
UpSmart is the premier financial consultancy firm in the startup, SME, and social enterprise industry. UpSmart specializes in strategic finance (e.g., structuring and restructuring of legal entities, valuing and modelling companies, serving as chief financial officer of companies) and operational finance (e.g., optimizing business processes and controls, accounting and bookkeeping support, financial reporting and analysis).
About Filbert
Filbert is the co-founder and managing director of UpSmart. He leads the consulting practice of UpSmart and specializes in handling corporate structuring and financial transformation projects. He was previously a consulting manager at Ernst & Young in the UK. He writes for Tech in Asia, Business Mirror and serves as a mentor at The Final Pitch on CNN.
