What have we learned so far?

Most of us have been in partial isolation mode for a few weeks and are settling into the rhythm of working from home in an attempt to keep our businesses functioning as close to normal as possible.

In financial services, we are generally lucky that a lot of revenue is annuity like. FUM, although diminished by market downturn, still continues to earn fees. But all of us have family members whose jobs have gone permanently, or who are “stood down”. Perhaps this time of year, Easter, more than any other, makes us reflect on the things that are really important – taking the trouble to get in touch with friends we haven’t spoken to for a while, enjoying chatting to neighbours from a distance, thanking the supermarket cashier and really meaning it.

At a personal level these lessons may change the way we view the importance of personal relations when the immediate effect of the virus is behind us. But there are other lessons in commercial resilience we can take from this period.

Look after your people: Richard Branson is quoted as saying “Staff come first – if you take care of your staff, they will take care of the clients” and this period has proven the truth of that.

Actively support Clients: Sustaining the relationships we have with our existing clients is critical. Clients grant us trust because at periods like this, they receive a service in which they can have confidence.

Build Resilient Systems: The trap in personal services organisations is always key person dependency. But if COVID-19 has taught us anything it is that none of us are immune – the virus respects neither age nor social status. The initial outbreak in Wuhan also unveiled the dependency of Australia and the US on supply chains with tendrils that reach far from the point of consumption. If COVID-19 has taught us one thing, it is to treat our businesses like systems that need resilience – the ability to withstand shocks when key team members aren’t available, access to normal premises is denied, and markets become extremely volatile. Building resilience requires a clear articulation of what we are aiming to deliver to clients and the key inputs necessary to achieve that, then creating redundancy in those inputs.

This operating mode could carry on for quite a while, and one result will be that we keep asking ourselves, “what am I learning as we go?”

Have a good week.

Toby Potter