• • Jeff Cann, Chief Strategist & CIO, Encore Electric

Download Podcast

Explore More

• Controlling Cloud Security Through Continuous Visibility
• Turning IT’s focus from Visibility to Value
• Future-focused Leadership
• The Future of IT Leadership
• Does your Leadership Pass the Audition?
• Identifying and Enabling the Skills of the Future
• Building Future Leaders for Hybrid Work Environment
• Are CIOs ready for the IT Workforce of the Future?

Transcript

Sanjog Aul [00:00:23]:

Hello, and, welcome to this segment on CTN. To learn more, please visit ciotalknetwork.com. And the topic for today is recalibrating safety and security for restoring trust. So COVID 19, political and social unrest or upheavals, and many other disruptions that have been caused by these areas or these incidents or events on our business and our personal life. So we have seen quite a bit of a shift. 2020 has been interesting year to say the least. Now with all that happening, look at the business side. The customers want to trust the people who serve them, and also the employees who work with those companies who serve such physical and overall safety for all people involved as well as information security, which also got disrupted. What are we doing as part of the business reopening to whatever degree we can that at no point people feel unsafe or insecure, or our data and any other crown jewels that we want to preserve and treasure, they are not jeopardized. So to discuss that, we have with us Jeff Cann. Jeff is the chief strategist and CIO with Encore Electric. Hey, Jeff. How are you?

Jeff Cann [00:01:56]:

Morning, Sanjog Aul. How are you?

Sanjog Aul [00:01:58]:

Very good, sir. Very good. So let’s start from an outside in view, which is a customer looking for assurances. And they’re looking in context of suppose you have a restaurant and you want to invite them in. They’re looking for some physical and health safety. Or there are some issues going on in the social sphere, some processions, some people looting, etcetera. All of those things have happened. What is the customer’s need or desire or the expressed opinion about the kind of assurances they should get from anyone who serves them? And while that is said, it is also in regards to the information security because we had so much disruption, and we had to move people to work remotely. Even that was shifted. Or overnight, we had to do something different, which must have caused some issues with information security. So what is customer asking in that regard? So physical and health safety, as well as physical and information security. What assurances does a customer want?

Jeff Cann [00:03:07]:

I think the customer wants to know what to expect first and foremost, Sanjog Aul. I think it’s important because people are disrupted. They’re not comfortable yet with sort of the current pandemic environment. I think we’re getting comfortable with it after a few months. Now I’m hearing people question, well, gee whiz, how long is this gonna go on? Is it gonna be months or even years that we’re wearing masks and we’re socially distancing? And I think trying to communicate with the customers the expectations of what they need to do is a critical part of the change process. So I would the companies that are successful right now are the ones that are really communicating well with their customers. I think important in that, though, is the voice of the customer. I think, right now, companies have tried to take control of the situation because that’s what they’re worried about their revenue. They’re worried about their customers. They wanna make sure that things are controlled as much as we can in this uncontrolled environment, so to speak. I think the voice of the customer is really critical, though.

Sanjog Aul [00:04:13]:

Now they could have some needs to be assured. But then that could also have an impact on whether they will continue to come to you as a service provider, or they may reduce the amount of business they give you, or they may start fundamentally shifting what they need and perhaps that would result in reduced revenue for you. So it could have an impact negatively. That means we have to not just think whatever customer is looking. We have to think beyond what customer is saying explicitly. So how do you find out about that unsaid need?

Jeff Cann [00:04:58]:

I think that’s a really difficult time, to question this time with the with the COVID pandemic. I think part of the challenge is foreseeing what does the future really look like. One of the things that we’ve been talking about and wondering about is whether or not what safety measures, for example, that are being implemented currently might stick for the long term, and which are temporary measures that we know might go away. And so, I think trying to strike that balance between what are we doing to address the health and safety of our customers and our workers, of course, and then what is what is what is gonna transition in the landscape over time, and then how do I foresee 18 months out, 3 years out, and what this new post pandemic world that we’re operating in, what does that really look like in terms of balancing those three needs? I think, Sanjog Aul, that’s where strategy can be a key component of that equation, is trying to focus people in different horizons of time to make sure they’re really keeping these things in mind. Because some things, I think, we know are gonna be short term measures. Other things may be a fundamental change, as you alluded to. And so the businesses that do well with handling a crisis, they actually there’s an opportunity here for many businesses to come out ahead of some of their competition. I’m gonna refer us to this quote called The Impact of Catastrophes on Shareholder Value from Knight and Pet Petty, from the University of Oxford. And, essentially, they tracked the revenue or valuation of companies before and after a crisis. And COVID is an example of a crisis. So, after 1 year, companies that were well prepared had a plus 7% impact on shareholder value, meaning their revenue and their company valuation increased during that time 12 months after the, after the crisis. Those that were not well prepared or had an ineffective crisis response actually lost 15% of their shareholder value. So that’s a 22% difference, Sanjog Aul, between ineffective and effective crisis responses. And I think even though this pandemic is worldwide affecting all businesses, it’s still a crisis. And there’s been other crisis in our lifetime. 9/11 is a great example of that fundamentally changed some things. And so I think, as a society, we know how to respond to crisis, and we know how to plan for the future. I think we just need to try to get those wheels moving. And then the biggest challenge for us all in all of this is the health and safety of the workers and the customers. So I think that’s a new dimension maybe that we haven’t seen in other crises like a flood or a fire or something like that, that more of a natural disaster type component.

Sanjog Aul [00:07:38]:

Whether you talk about revenue expectations for companies or even what how much security and safety we can offer to customers and employees. There is a talk out there where they say, you know what? This year is gonna be just get by somehow. But is that good enough a benchmark for anyone to follow? If you’re a business, you can only ride that wave of fear, uncertainty, and doubt for so long and not see your you being crushed on the Wall Street or your employees leaving for somebody else once they have a choice. So what is that benchmark someone should create as an organization in all of these areas, the safety and the security for the customers and employees?

Jeff Cann [00:08:26]:

Well, I think we’ve got to return to some fundamentals of business, and that is understand what are the outcomes we’re looking for and how can we measure those outcomes through KPIs or key performance indicators. I think you’re gonna see companies and their social responsibility part of their company reports or annual reports talking about what are they doing to keep their employees safe. I think that’s one dimension. I think also in the construction industry, for example, we have an experience modification rating or EMR, which is an actual measurement of how well we perform in terms of safety, and that’s a function of hours lost by injury and things like that. And so there are lots of risk management tools out there in the toolbox, Sanjog Aul, that companies may be bringing to the forefront out of their risk management offices and starting to really consider how can we actually measure our performance. Because I think to your point, just sort of trying to get by is not gonna be good enough. Those are the companies that are gonna be out of business in a few years, I think, because they’ve gotta look forward. And despite the difficulty in trying to predict the future, that’s where I think an agile mindset can come in where you’re sort of charting a course for the future, but you’ve got to be nimble and revisit that course and make adjustments as things become clear into what kind of future operating environment will these companies and customers be working in in the future. I mean, if you’re talking about a fundamental shift, for example, of people working from home for the long period of time, there are some questions about, does that erode corporate culture? I don’t know. And so we’re in the middle of this experiment, and we need to try to balance our understanding and try to look for those areas that we can measure. And course correct, like any good captain of any kind of vessel, you’ve got to course correct along the way. And so I think that agile mindset is really critical for these companies. But standing pat, to your point, Sanjog Aul, is probably not a good option long term.

Sanjog Aul [00:10:21]:

Let’s take a quick break, listeners. We’ll be right back. And, Jeff, while we totally are not, like, in a stationary state, people are trying to do something. Some people are more frantic and doing it out of fear. Others are more mature. But regardless, people are trying to do something to grapple, is the word, I would say, with this situation. How can organizations, now that the shock of COVID 19 hitting us and other type of socioeconomic and political issues hitting us, they’ve happened to us, and now we know we are in the middle of those. What would it take for organizations or what are organizations doing to take a step back and say, okay, we are in a crisis. Here is a plan to tackle it, and let’s go with this plan to tackle, even though it might be fluid, but at least have some plan. What does that planning process looks like, look like, and to what degree has your organization and many others built a plan? Please stay tuned listeners. We’ll be right back and dig in.

Speaker 0 [00:11:33]:

Today, enterprise technology is both strategic and global. Each week on CTN CIO Talk Network, IT thought leaders from around the world share their experience If you want to keep up with IT thought leadership, listen to CTN, CIO Talk Network with Sanjog Aul at ciotalknetwork.com. You are listening to CTN, CIO Talk Network with Sanjog Aul. To learn more about our program, please visit ciotalknetwork.com. Now back to the show.

Sanjog Aul [00:12:28]:

Welcome back. So, Jeff, we have to be planning. We cannot ride this wave of uncertainty for too long. But for us to be able to plan, it should ideally not be driven by fear, driven by uncertainty. What are you doing as leaders, like in your company and others, at least what you’ve observed, to abstract yourself to maximum degree possible and look at it as you’re above the problem or at least you’re literally separated from the problem and get into a problem solving mode. And to that end, in a problem solving mode, what’s the plan? Even if it has not been completed yet, what’s the semblance of a plan that has been created by organizations to tackle what’s going on?

Jeff Cann [00:13:25]:

Well, I thought at Encore, we did a good job of doing two things. So first of all, we initiated a COVID 19 response team. And that team, like many companies, similarly, was meeting every day for the first part of the pandemic. Things have slowed down, so I think that team’s meeting maybe once or twice a week now. But their whole charge or charter was to really understand what’s happening, what’s the new information, what adjustments do we need to make. And for the jurisdictions in which we operate, what are the rules and changes to safety that we need to comply with? And then make a plan, an immediate action plan, and get those changes out to the field, get them to the offices, and make sure we’re managing those things. It was a lot of work for I’m sure you can understand, Sanjog Aul. Many companies have gone through that. And then about six weeks ago or maybe 1 month ago, we said, we really need to look at sort of this plan ahead. We call it the plan ahead team. And so the plan ahead team is made up of mostly different people who are not on the COVID response team on purpose. And these are folks that can, as you alluded to, can look out into the future and start to think about how are things fundamentally changing and how are things temporarily changing. And I think it’s important to bucket those two types of observations and activities because there are gonna be some fundamental changes. For example, Microsoft Teams, which had 14,000,000 daily users before COVID and now has 75,000,000 daily users. And so I think people are gonna continue to use collaboration tools on the technology side in ways that we don’t even really totally understand. But I don’t think Microsoft Teams, for example, or other collaboration platforms are really gonna go away in a post pandemic world. So that would be a good example of something that you wanna keep in mind going for the future. How can we maximize those collaboration tools? How can we get the best out of them so that it’s a strategic competitive advantage for our operation? And also make sure our employees know how to use those tools and we work through that change process. On the other hand, there may be temporary situations that maybe go away. So, for example, wearing masks. Probably we’re gonna be wearing masks for another year, maybe 2, but 3 or 4 years from now, I don’t foresee us necessarily always wearing masks in public and social distancing. And so I think trying to consider that that is maybe a temporary or a near term change. And so, as you start to sift through these ideas and these observations into these two lists, you can focus on balancing what are the things we have to deal with in the near term versus what are the things that can become a strategic advantage. Michael Porter talks about the planning horizon and strategy, and that’s a really important part for this group to be in that 18 months to 3 years ahead horizon, looking out into the future and really trying to gather as much information about plans, ideas of customers. And it’s hard to engage customers for some of those conversations right now. So folks might have to turn to sort of traditional think tanks and research groups that are really they’re in the business of looking ahead. They’re trying to spot trends. And so that plan ahead team can talk to our customers, talk to these think tanks, try to look at industry trends, and try to foresee where we’re going. So let me break that down really simply for Encore. We do a lot of work with data centers, for example. We build data centers. We already knew pre pandemic that that was roughly an 8% growth market year over year. Well, now that’s going to be revised upward because, as you know, Sanjog Aul, a lot of companies were caught a little flat footed, and they’re not fully in the cloud. And so that’s gonna drive demand for cloud services going forward, which will drive demand for building new data centers. And so that’s a good example of that 18 months to 3 years horizon where we’re planning to say, well, what can we do to get more data center work for our company? So we’re securing that revenue stream going forward. So just trying to show you a couple examples of how we’re thinking about it through the plan ahead team at Encore.

Sanjog Aul [00:17:14]:

And as you are doing what you’re doing, these are great examples. Thanks so much for sharing them. Now how closely do you follow that alignment part of it? So suppose internally you’re making some changes. You’re thinking 18 months to 3 years horizon. But your existence is directly connected to the people you serve internally and externally. How much of input are we getting from them and feedback we are getting from them, said and unsaid ones?

Jeff Cann [00:17:48]:

Yeah. That’s a great point. I think that’s where employee trust is a fundamental part of the company. Most companies assume they have employee trust. I think they should check that assumption through various means. We’ve used things like simple surveys, and trying to understand people’s comfort with coming back to an office environment. And then our HR team has done a wonderful job of calling those folks who raised questions or sort of had uncertainty and having conversations with them about their particular situation. And I think you’ve got to have that balance of trying to gather a trend or enough data to get a trend across your employees, but also have that capacity to have your teams reach out and specifically talk to people individually, have that conversation. Because people, as you know, Sanjog Aul, want a voice. They want to be heard. And during this time of uncertainty, maybe they have an elderly relative they’re caring for at home who’s in a high risk category, they really are uncomfortable coming back to work potentially because they don’t want to bring that virus home and cause some kind of exposure to that loved one. And so I think if you try to rely on the traditional memos and emails and things like that, I think that’s not gonna go over well to build trust. Trust is built through human interactions and through conversations. Another thing we’ve done is we’ve had video town halls, and we’ve had our president address the company directly in video recordings through, like, a really kind of like a fireside chat, although low production, but kind of that idea that he’s talking to people in a video sense. Because I think when you do that, when you show the leaders talking, especially in a video because you can’t be face to face necessarily, that’s going to give people a comfort level. They can see the nonverbal cues of that leader and understand, well, I can see he’s comfortable, or no, he’s nervous, or oh, he’s hopeful. I mean, people wanna see those signs from their leaders to understand and take cues of the direction of the company. And so the more employee engagement you can do, the better. The more you can acknowledge people’s concerns and the more you can say, Yes, we are in a world of uncertainty, but we’re here to work with you, employees, to make sure that we can fight through that uncertainty and we can work together. And I think that’s the key part of that relationship idea, is to work together to make sure that folks understand that we’re not just gonna push policy downhill to the masses, and they have to comply. It’s gotta be that two way conversation that’s really gonna be powerful to help both build trust and build confidence that everyone’s being safe and taken care of. And they’re balancing, as you said, to that long term look of how do we keep the business operating.

Sanjog Aul [00:20:27]:

Now an interesting area that does come up where you are trying to serve the customer and you want to take that up a notch, especially now because you want to retain them. That’s good while customer is accommodating, but they will not stop being demanding. At the same time, to be able to do that extra go that extra mile to keep your customer satisfied, there would be a need to ramp up how your employees work. And they themselves are having their personal concerns, health concerns, their kid and kin and family related concerns, and they’re working from home handling other obligations. What would you do to eat the cake and have it too? Not all drive your employees down to the grindstone because you need to keep your customers because both are equally important. What’s your approach to striking a balance?

Jeff Cann [00:21:32]:

That’s a great question. I think, over the years, we in technology have had more opportunity, especially for the technology sector. But even folks in technology and a non technology sector have had the opportunity to work remotely. And I think those of us who’ve done it for a number of years kind of have an experience and a wisdom to understand how to balance work life. What I’m seeing in my company in particular that has less experience in that is that we have to have those conversations directly about how do we manage the customer, how do we do complete our responsibilities and be effective, and then how do we not work ourselves 16 hours a day? Because you’re two steps away from your office now. No longer do you have that commute or that downtime to sort of decompress and transition from your work mindset to your family or home mindset. And so we’ve tried to have conversations with our employees and really give them permission to say, look, this is you still need to think of this as there’s gotta be a balance here. And so resist that temptation to be checking email and working at all hours of the day. Make sure you have a clear break of when you’re working and when you’re not working because that’s really challenging for many people. Most people wanna do their best at their work. And I think they’re also concerned that because they’re at home, they’re not as in touch with their supervisors. And I saw this great study that talked about the different generations and their comfort levels with working from home. And the boomer generation was uncomfortable with it. The Gen Xers were very comfortable with it. And the millennials, surprisingly, weren’t as comfortable as they expected. And that was for two reasons. One, they weren’t getting mentorship that they really are craving at this point in their careers. And then secondly, often they have family obligations that actually make working from home a little more chaotic than maybe a Gen Xer whose kids are maybe grown or out of the nest, so to speak. And so I was a little surprised by that result, Sanjog Aul, but I thought it was an important emphasis on mentoring. And I think that’s something we’ve got to continue to figure out how to mentor our employees to both fulfill the customer’s needs and then find that work life balance. Because as you know and I know, if you work people too hard, the customer won’t get served. People burn out. They get illness. They may quit. That’s not a result anyone wants. And so, we’ve got to try to work through those fears, through crucial conversations and understanding and empathy to make sure that we’re not we’re keeping things in balance. And the only way you’re gonna do that is demonstrate that as a leader. Am I demonstrating this? Or am I sending emails at 11:00? Am I encouraging my team to take time off and be unplugged? Or am I constantly plugged in? So you’ve gotta be explicit as a leader, I think, to set the tone for your team. And then also give them explicit permission to say, okay, stop working. Go spend time. Go walk the dog. Go whatever it is you need to do to recharge yourself. And so I think those are really key parts of this balancing act.

Sanjog Aul [00:24:28]:

So what you just mentioned is definitely required leadership in which you’re saying most leaders out there today, including yourself, are. You’re cognizant of, so you wanna take care of employees. Now business runs on metrics, and what you don’t measure, you cannot improve. And at this time, you want to be able to measure and there are opportunities and there are tools and processes out there which help you measure customer satisfaction and what to think about you, etcetera. So that part is already there, and you want to up it a notch. But at the back end, when we look at the employee side, you mentioned about a survey, which is gross aggregation of what a bunch of people thinking versus an individual thinking. And that individual, when contributes to their best, is what’s going to cumulatively end up helping your organization help that customer give you that higher level of satisfaction rating. So are we just measuring customers? We have been measuring customers a lot more, and we have been doing the softer, non metric oriented measure of how employees are doing. Would we continue doing that, or would you say now it’s even more important than ever that we create more metric oriented measures of how do we handle our employees, what’s happening based on what how we lead and manage them, and as the way the way we do it with our customers. So but before we get more into it, let’s take a quick break, listeners. We’ll be right back and explore.

Speaker 0 [00:26:05]:

Today, enterprise technology is both strategic and global. Each week on CTN, CIO Talk Network, IT thought leaders from around the world share their experience with listeners as they discuss with Sanjog Aul how they are trimming costs and partnering with business to innovate and help IT become more competitive, better care for customers, and improve the corporate bottom line. If you want to keep up with IT thought leadership, listen to CTN, CIO Talk Network with Sanjog Aul at ciotalknetwork.com. You are listening to CTN CIO Talk Network with Sanjog Aul. Now back to the show.

Sanjog Aul [00:26:55]:

Welcome back. So the way we handle our customers’ satisfaction rating, the metric, the approaches we take, and we measure what the response to that approach we have taken to satisfy a customer, we numerically measure them. When it comes to our employees, traditionally, we have done so more in a subjective manner or take those surveys that you mentioned. Now we are more dependent than ever on the employee’s satisfaction for you to be able to do much with the customers. Are we going to shift something in the way we handle how we handle the employee satisfaction and what we do to grow them and keep them motivated and do it more so in quantitative manner versus just fuzzy qualitative way.

Jeff Cann [00:27:49]:

I mean, you’re hitting on a fundamental challenge in the way we manage people, Sanjog Aul, because people can meet their ideas and thoughts and sentiments can be aggregated. One of the things you and I have talked about in the past is net promoter score, which is a great tool. And we use Energage, for example, on employee engagement survey. But I think when I look at like, I was on a call with the CTO at Workday, maybe 6 weeks ago. We talked about the way they want to envision and starting to use AI to aggregate employee sentiment and help predict is this employee at risk because they’re disengaged and things like that. I think we’re just getting into the real shallow waters of using big data for people management in a different way. Because I don’t know if we know enough about behavior patterns and even if humans are even predictable in the sense of that I can sort of understand that through analytics. I do think there are some things that are coming out, though, and I’m excited about what they said, for example, at Workday, of how they wanna look at this problem. I think they wanna aggregate lots of data across many companies and try to give managers kind of like a flash report that says, okay. Here’s how your people are doing at this point in time. And so those metrics, those more sophisticated analytics can give you sort of a stop sign, if you will, to say, you know what? This team member, they’re kinda showing some signs of struggling. Or maybe they’re on a trend that has them leaving the company in 18 months. They’re starting to show signs of disengagement for whatever reasons. The metrics have come out from their behavior and what’s happening. So I have an opportunity as a manager or leader to go into that individual and start having a conversation to understand what’s really happening. Or do you need more training? Are you frustrated? Is it a supervisor problem? There’s a myriad of answers to that, and I don’t think analytics are gonna get us to that final answer. So I think there’s always gonna be necessary conversation to understand what are these metrics telling us. And also just to sort of check. I think sometimes leaders get uncomfortable with those metrics, and they wanna manage by anecdote. And I try to encourage people to not just use the anecdotes because sometimes there are one offs that don’t make sense to turn into sort of a policy or a trend. But also, you’ve got to understand the analytics are not gonna give you the answer in today’s world. Maybe in the future, there’s gonna be more ability to process information and make it make sense. But I think we’ve gotta remember that we’re fundamentally working with humans. We’re fundamentally unpredictable. And so there’s a challenge there for them to do their job and engage the employee on an individual basis. Now for your high performers that are doing well and the statistics show that they’re doing well, then just continue to encourage them, give them that freedom to create and do great things for your customers. For those who need some help, identify those and then shore them up and give them the resources and tools they need to be successful.

Sanjog Aul [00:30:51]:

Now the things that you’ve done, or are you proposing to your employee base, for example? How amenable are they to those changes? And that could be for safety, for security, for the way you seek their feedback, the way you get them to work on exciting projects, or anything else that you were doing earlier. Now even employees’ own personal life is impacted to the degree, in many cases, beyond our own imagination because we would not know what they’re dealing with all the time, and they may not share with us what they’re dealing with all the time. So would you manage a black like a black box like we used to earlier, or are there ways for you to get to know your people to a certain level and change the way? Because earlier, a corporate used to look at everyone, and they used to actually use the word resource, which means squeeze the last drop out of every penny of that resource. But now they have to think about them more as humans. What is happening? What is shifting at your end? And when you’re shifting something, what are you seeing the level of receptivity, changing for the employees?

Jeff Cann [00:32:14]:

I think there’s a this is kind of a multivariate problem in the way I see it. First of all, you’ve got leadership that came up through their business experiences in a different world where it was a little more commanding control. And on the other side, you’ve got the millennial generation coming through that is more open to, more receptive to a more egalitarian type of leadership. So, you know, I don’t necessarily see things as a hierarchy. I see it as we’re working together as a team. And, certain, you know, certain companies even will go to say, like, okay. Everybody at JetBlue, for example, their title is team member, things like that. And so I think those are exciting developments in the workplace. And I think part of it is for leadership to understand their comfort level with their employees and how to engage them. I heard a great message one time early on as a leader, and it was, like, you can be friendly, but not friends. And I think that the idea is we’ve got to have some boundaries, at least that’s what I’m comfortable with, but you also have to engage people on a personal level. And there are many good disarming questions you can ask people, open ended questions to sort of try to build that trust and explore how what is their comfort level with the situation. Because ultimately, if a person feels listened to, and again, you’re not solving their problems necessarily, but they you give them that voice that they crave, they feel like they have a little bit of control in their lives. I’ve had this great conversation with my leader, and I’ve talked to them about my concerns, and he really listened to me or she really heard what I was saying. That’s a powerful way to build that long term trust, which leads to great engagement, which leads to loyalty, which leads to great service of your customers. So to me, all those things are connected together. And if you lose sight of that, then you’re going to risk the customer ultimately because your employees aren’t gonna be as engaged. And so I think that’s part of it. The other part that we talk about is the why statement, which is really important for change management. And we try to work on making sure that everyone is clear on the leadership team why are we doing this particular thing. And then as we use that same language to communicate the why statement, that gives us an opportunity to tell our people what’s happening. And when they come to us with a question, we can answer, well, this is why we’re doing this, to serve the customer, to keep the employees safe, to make sure we don’t spread the virus. We have to be really careful. I mean, leadership sometimes and strategy sometimes, you’ve got to be really patient with delivering the message over and over and over again in many different formats and ways so that people really start to absorb it and understand it. That’s where you’re gonna get those that buy in for those changes. And in the meantime, you’re gonna get that feedback from your employees to understand, are these changes being effective? Can I course correct? Can I measure the results? Can I make a difference? And often, I found that the employees are really talented. When you ask them, how can we measure the effectiveness of this situation? The people doing the work are far more creative than the leaders generally in giving you that metric. And so I really encourage people to really look at that and engage your employees and have them help you understand how best can we help you and help understand your challenges for productivity, for serving the customer so we can measure those things and make sure that we’re keeping on track during this time of uncertainty.

Sanjog Aul [00:35:31]:

Now if you take the same sentiment back to the customers, because traditionally, we used to revere customers. Like, you know, whatever they say, your wish is our command. Now everyone is impacted with the kind of situation that we’re dealing with. Are we able to appeal to the human side of those customers and ask them for concessions instead of trying to be a hero and driving everybody down to the ground at ourselves our side internally? Or can we actually go to customer and say, you understand the situation. I’m sure you’re dealing with it too. Would you offer some concessions? We are just gonna let you know what’s going on internally at our end, but we have the right intention. We want to serve you, but we are stuck in this situation temporarily or in this particular instance. It would take us a little more time or we might be able to give you a scaled down version of the service or the product that you were looking for, but we want to serve you. When you go back with such an appeal or if you go back with such an appeal to the customers, are they open? Are they amenable to such shifts in what you used to the way you used to treat them earlier and what you can do realistically now?

Jeff Cann [00:36:53]:

I think part of it is understanding what business are you in. In the case of Encore, we’re a B2B, not a B2C operation. And so the way we approach our customers, we’re very much a customer driven environment. And so we are constantly working with our customers to understand construction industry is very dynamic, Sanjog Aul. And so their change is just a matter of the way things go on those job sites. And so we do have those crucial conversations. And it starts with building trust. And I think the word you used is really great. Intent is the key word to all of this. When people are fearful or they’re uncertain, it’s easy to forget about the intent. And that fear sometimes clouds our understanding of what we’re hearing coming from our suppliers or what I’m saying to a customer. And so we sometimes misinterpret what we’re saying. I think if you state the intent and you really start from there, then you can be clear with your customer to say, look, our intent is to continue to serve you. But we’re in a situation where we’ve incurred some additional costs for safety protection and some productivity issues because we’ve gotta clean the job site. So those are conversations we had early on with our customers to ensure they understood what was happening. And, of course, I think right now, people are accepting it. They I don’t know that they love the financial impact of it, but I don’t think there’s a lot of choice. I mean, we can’t have people continuing to build a job site and not worry about the safety of the COVID virus. And so, they were receptive to those conversations. But it’s part of that bigger fluidity of that customer supplier relationship. And I think that’s important. I think if you’re on more of a mass consumer situation, you’ve got to actually do as much work, if not more, to communicate with your customers and explain to them why costs have gone up because of the COVID environment. And you want to do it in a way that makes it doesn’t seem like you’re just trying to grab a lot of extra profit, but you’re really trying to be genuine in your intent. And I think stating your intent with a mass customer base as well is just as important. And so, really, people understand the difference between cynical and genuine. And if you’re being genuine in your communications and you’re really being intentional, I think your customers will pick up on that. But if you have a history of not being more sort of sanitized in your communication, you’ve gotta be careful on the tone. And I think that’s where a good communications team can really help make sure you strike the right tone relative to your history and what you’re looking to do in the future. Because people are very good at reading tone from their suppliers. I think that’s a key part of that component as well.

Sanjog Aul [00:39:26]:

If I was very open and transparent with my customer and I mentioned to them that, hey. We are dealing with this thing. Our intent is there. We want to serve you. But for the time being, this is the best we can do, and I hope you recognize it. So as the human, the other side might say, yes. I totally get it. Don’t worry. We’ll deal with it. But then their boss comes and who says, I have to report to Wall Street or I have to report to my customer what happened to this. They said these guys are not able to do what they were supposed to do because they are stuck with the pandemic or any other constraint that they may have given the situation. He says, who else do we have who can deliver? Because I don’t wanna lose my job. And that’s a pressure at the customer side. And because of that, it might open a door where a competitor could wedge in. How do you handle that fear on one hand that might also creep in within your leadership and your organization, which will again pull you down into that mode of try to be a hero.

Jeff Cann [00:40:29]:

I think fear is a powerful emotion, and I think that’s where you’ve gotta just acknowledge that fear and get to that crucial conversation. I think there’s not an easy way. And if you’re unable to deliver on a promise because things have changed and the customer’s unsatisfied with that, then go to another supplier. You really I mean, I would question how strong the relationship was in the first place. I would also wonder whether that other supplier is really being clear with their intent and whether they’re just trying to win new business. And then they may actually not deliver either. Because I think everyone’s operating in a similar playing field in one sense, Sanjog Aul. So that challenge of the pandemic is really gonna be tough. And I think folks are probably gonna be flexible for a while. To your point, though, if the Wall Street number starts to erode or there’s lots of business losses, that could be a bigger challenge. And then, again, that goes back to that 18 months to 3 years planning horizon. What can we do to plan for if we lose some revenue or lose some key customers? How can we replace that revenue? How can we find people that we can better serve during this time of uncertainty?

Sanjog Aul [00:41:39]:

Let’s take a quick break, listeners. We’ll be right back. And let’s talk about the areas which we know or there must be a process for us to know what we don’t know, how to deal with certain elements of our business during this interesting times and unprecedented time. What external sources can we tap into? Who could come and advise us? How do we even go about seeking a partner, a vendor, a confidant, an adviser, whosoever that is? And how do we check their credit credentials and credibility and place trust on them that they can help us sail through these, turbulent times? Please stay tuned, listeners. We’ll be right back and explore.

Speaker 0 [00:42:22]:

Today, enterprise technology is both strategic and global. Each week on CTN, CIO Talk Network, IT thought leaders from around the world share their experience with listeners as they discuss with Sanjog Aul how they are trimming costs and partnering with business to innovate and help IT become more competitive, better care for customers, and improve the corporate bottom line. If you want to keep up with IT thought leadership, listen to CTN, CIO Talk Network with Sanjog Aul at ciotalknetwork.com.

Sanjog Aul [00:43:02]:

network dot com.

Speaker 0 [00:43:05]:

You are listening to CTN CIO Talk Network with Sanjog Aul. Now back to the show.

Sanjog Aul [00:43:13]:

Welcome back. So, Jeff, the things that are happening with us individually and as businesses are so new that no one can come and claim expertise internally or even externally. But it would be a good idea for an organization to identify where they are stuck versus trying to be heroes. And even though there is no one who can claim expertise outside, there must be a way to figure out, to do the due diligence, to invite someone from outside to help where they can help, they can give us the helping hand and help us sail through this. How do you suggest organization approach this seeking outside help to complement what they truly have as strengths to deal with what we’re dealing with today?

Jeff Cann [00:44:05]:

I think we want to take the approach of and I think Steve Jobs did this with some of his projects over the years. But you wanna give people you wanna have a facilitator, someone that can come in. Maybe it’s a strategy consultant. Maybe it’s just a trusted business adviser. Someone that knows about your business so you don’t have to spend a ton of time explaining what you do, but also has that ability to facilitate a creative problem solving or creative brainstorming event. And I think that’s where you want to take the team, the leadership team within the company, and have them start to think about what if this changes, what if this is a new opportunity, and really start to open up their minds to what are the things that we are not aware of. I mean, Rumsfeld famously said there are unknown unknowns and known unknowns. And I think those are the challenges that you want to try to get into that brainstorming session to really understand what are we potentially not thinking about? I also think risk management has a really good part to play in that because all businesses manage risk on one level, Sanjog Aul. And I think this is just a different conditions or set of risks. And so whatever risk management toolbox you have today, you definitely should use that. If you’re not using some of the tools that are out there, get educated on what you can do with risk management. But trying to bring the leadership team together to look at the future, the current, our customers, our employees, safety, risk management, revenue streams, risk to revenue streams. This is what good business leaders need to do, is to balance and weigh in on all those different things and try to overcome that fear. And sometimes a good facilitator will just start out with, What are we afraid of? Let’s have a really frank, open discussion with the leadership team about, What are we worried about? Are we worried about going out of business? Are we worried about our employees quitting? Are we worried about losing our culture because no one’s in the office anymore? Those are very real fears that I’ve heard communicated in different settings. And I think it’s important to acknowledge those things. Because once we say them out loud, we can put them into light and examine them in a way that helps us understand how important is this fear to address. It may be very important. And so, we may spend some time looking at ways to mitigate that concern. Other fears may just be more of an emotional uncertainty, I don’t know what’s going to happen kind of a fear. And then when you put them out into light, they may not have that much gravity. And so maybe those are ones that you don’t spend too much time on. But trying to rank order all the different concerns, opportunities, that’s really gonna help people move through that. But you really, I think companies do well when they have someone who can facilitate that conversation and get people out of their normal sort of functional discipline expertise and think more broadly and more globally to understand how are things really gonna happen for us to be successful moving forward.

Sanjog Aul [00:47:00]:

Now, whether it is recalibrating the safety and security of the people who work for us and the customers we serve, or it is about the strategy, or it is about the way we shift our business operations to stay, healthy and on our sustained existence and profitability path. Who should own this effort? You mentioned in the beginning, Jeff, that your team or your organization has put together a COVID task force. Now that’s COVID task force and, yeah, you deal with that crisis, if you will. But there is something to be said about people evolving and there is business to be run, and we have to start shifting and we have to recalibrate things and we have to put new things in process so that life could resume and business could resume to normalcy. How would you put together such a team And who should own this effort? Because too many chefs can also spoil the brat.

Jeff Cann [00:48:03]:

Right. That’s a good question. I think what we’ve done at Encore in particular is we’ve got a group of individuals there, mostly leaders, who are looking at what does the future really look like. It’s almost a subset of our larger strategy team because, as you said, too many cooks spoil the broth. I think we want to make sure we have that right balance. And some of these questions are probably better in a smaller group setting to answer because there is such a degree of uncertainty. And so those folks who are on that team should really be okay with uncertainty, to be okay with that idea that we don’t know what’s going to happen in the future. And what we thought was going to happen in this conversation today is going to change, and the next time we have a conversation a week from now. And so trying to be comfortable in that unknown fluidity is really important. And so if you’ve got people on your leadership team who are able to put themselves in that space, that mind space, those are good candidates for it. And it may not necessarily be an executive, but someone who’s just a good thinker, open minded, able to deal with changing and dynamic environments. Some of us are not that good at that. And so, for those who are really concerned about operational efficiency or effectiveness or trying to have predictability, they may not always be a good one to put onto that sort of what’s going to happen in the future team. And so it should be part of the company’s overall strategy. For those companies out there who are not doing formal strategy, this is a good opportunity to start doing it. And so there’s a lot of great resources out there. Whether you can read up on it, there’s many, many books, and there’s many, many consultants who can help. But I think really this is an opportunity for companies that have just had that kind of we just do what we do and we’re not thinking too far ahead. This is a really great opportunity to learn those skills of strategy and really try to go forward and understand how can strategy help your business be successful. Because nobody, Sanjog Aul, can predict the future, right? We don’t know. There could be some other thing happening tomorrow that’s we don’t even really aren’t aware of and not ready for. So, it’s really that challenge of being nimble but also being thoughtful. And I think that’s hard. That’s a hard balance to find.

Sanjog Aul [00:50:11]:

Final question. What specific new leadership muscle do you think we need to develop at individual employee level as well as in management and leadership level to make sure that this recalibration for, the safety and security of people and also how the business will work to eventually restore trust and have a good business reopening happen successfully.

Jeff Cann [00:50:39]:

Wow. What leadership muscles should we develop? I would have to say what came to mind when you asked that is flexibility. Flexibility in times of uncertainty. I think it’s a very difficult, challenging trait. Humans are creatures of habits rather. And so, it goes against our natural inclinations to be open and flexible. But now is a great opportunity to learn and develop that skill, and that would be the one that I would want all of us as leaders to really focus on and make sure that we can take that flexibility into the future. Because the future really is uncertain. We just sometimes pretend it’s really not. And so I think that’s a key one I would focus on.

Sanjog Aul [00:51:19]:

On behalf of the show and our listeners, thanks so much, Jeff, for sharing how organizations can get their people together, build some good leadership muscles, get their employees on board, as well as their customers, to recalibrate their safety and security, and also how business will be done moving forward so that they can successfully reopen. Thanks so much again, Jeff.

Jeff Cann [00:51:41]:

You’re welcome. It was great being here. Thank you.

Sanjog Aul [00:51:43]:

Thank you. And listeners, please like us on Facebook. Search for CTN on Twitter and on LinkedIn. And thank you again for listening to this segment on CTN. This is Sanjog Aul, your talk show host. Till next week, take care, and God bless.