Last week, I had the pleasure of attending an event around resilience, in the world of consumer duty and cyber threats, in Manchester. All very interesting, and I walked away with the feeling that what we think we know is merely just a fraction of what is really going on.

It was an, albeit a concerning, eye-opener to the need to be prepared and being operationally (and indeed cyber) resilient to potential risks.

The event, built upon a prior session in London, more focused on the public sector, which highlighted digital threats posed by state actors and criminal entities (the size of a large G7 economy these days).

Most of the time, we are just not aware of what is going on… yet in the background, there are relentless attempts at extortion, brand damage, and other malicious intents. It seems to be getting worse, and indeed highlighted the week before, upon visiting the British Library, finding that they had had a ransomware attack too).

Dyb-Dob – Be Prepared

All of this did make me think on the way home about preparedness. Why is it we are all too ready to spend money on growth and new exciting tech?… Yet preparedness or protective measures for future threats, some even yet to be determined, not so much.

When losses remain unseen, investment in defences often feels unnecessary. Yet, without the investment, if something occurs, can have of much greater impact and stress for all involved. It is one of our human cognitive biases or blind spots… loss aversion, I think?

It is also true in the world of Accounts Receivable, Collections, and Recoveries.

How many leaders of these functions have struggled to explain the need for gathering data from upstream processes (updated contact details, potential vulnerabilities, financial difficulties), or educating customers, providing support when times are good… rather than having to gather this information once the customer is already having challenges and under stress?

… and as for technology investment, this is why many still struggle with spreadsheets, multiple systems, and manual processes, whilst the onboarding process is seamless and slick.

There’s often a discernible imbalance in investment, favouring growth over preventive and supportive strategies.

Of course, it doesn’t have to be this way. To some extent with the Consumer Duty, in financial services at least, the FCA has come to the rescue, requiring resilience and good customer outcomes across the entire customer journey… as a compliance requirement, it should help.

Social Ideas

Getting out and about meeting new people I am still finding really refreshing. Not just for the ideas sparked from any event content, but also for the informal discussion too.

At the event, in London, the lunchtime discussion turned to the media reports of the day around social media consumption of news, and how this is changing the media landscape, especially amongst the ‘youth’ of today.

Apart from thinking I am sure I heard the same concerns and dangers highlighted by my parents in the 1980s about television, I also realised that most of my news is already from X/Twitter, curated video clips from TikTok/Instagram, leading to watching long-form content on YouTube. (I am definitely not in the ‘younger’ demographic btw!)

Little of my media consumption is traditional media (Live TV or newspapers). You can see the challenges they are under, especially for niche content (science/tech discussions and food videos in my case).

Room for Reading

This splurge of new media formats has, undoubtedly impacted my reading behaviour too.

I have never been an avid reader but trained myself to do so really to access ideas in non-fiction or business books in particular. With the advent of short-form videos, however, this has become increasingly frustrating.

I mean, why read 250 pages to express ideas that could be explained in 6 pages of PowerPoint, in a talk online? It is just so much more efficient.

Yet, a recent sci-fi thriller on Netflix this weekend gave me another view. That is just how great fiction is at exploring hypothetical scenarios and questions. The film was thought-provoking, as good ideas are, and with some good storytelling had me thinking about it all weekend.

This together with the lunchtime discussion has me reevaluating reading fiction again… Maybe a resolution to revisit a good book or two… now I just need to find a bit of time, and get into the habit!

Have a good week everyone.

(thanks to the Fournet team for the event invites)

There were 2 and now there is 1.  One of my cats sadly passed away last year.

Now I am fully aware that anything cat or dog related seems to break the internet, who would have thought, but sad as it was this is not going to be the eulogy (…she was old with several ailments unfortunately).

But this story has more to do with both cats and the fact they were sisters… not sisters against their human overlords, but real sisters and ones that did not really get along.

Although they were both from the same litter they could not have been more different.  One was outgoing, talkative, and affectionate, the other quiet, aloof, and seemingly wanting to spend more time roaming the garden than in the house.  Whenever approached she would run away nervously.

It was just how it was.  One was extrovert and gregarious, the other a quiet bundle of nerves, who preferred to sit in the corner.  We thought this is the way it is, what they are like and you can imagine which we spent more time with.

Yet, now we only have one, the quiet one. She has now inherited the entire indoor estate and territory.   With the freedom to roam, full access to the servants and house staff (that is us by the way)… the behavioural change has been dramatic.

No more cowering in the corner, or shooting upstairs to avoid conflict.  Now she is taking pride of place on the sofa, looking mildly annoyed when a human takes her spot, or coming to see us and actively letting us know when she wants food… it is like she has had a personality transplant.

We thought she was just quiet, not engaged or friendly… it turns out she was none of things.  It was just the environment was wrong.  She was intimidated by her sister.

With this now changed she is living her best life.

Now as I have said before, you can learn a lot from your pets and there is a lesson for us too… back in the office.

Many times, I have sat in meetings and the conversation turns to performance.  We all have opinions of other people, sometimes they are good and sometimes there are areas you want to see improve, this is our role as people leaders.

Yet, sometimes you also hear comments where people have written someone off… they are not good, not engaged, doesn’t work hard, it can become a view on someone’s innate qualities.

Now this may be what people see or feel from their perspective.  However, this may not be the person and who they actually are… it could just be the environment that makes them like this… the culture or even a colleague may change the way they interact…  identify and remove these environmental obstacles and you will see them flourish. 

In our roles as people leaders, we need to get the best out of our teams. 

I am not suggesting laser pointers, new tech toys or treats won’t help… but taking a look at the culture and team dynamics may do even more… it can have a dramatic effect and is worth a look.

Have a good week everyone.