Pets do seem to be playing an increasing role in many of our lives. Indeed there seem to be quite a few folks I know who acquired a dog during lockdown, who are now becoming features on work video calls and no-one minds anymore too. It is great.

‘Dogs have owners… cats have staff’.

In my house, no dogs, but there are cats… 2 cats. Now, I would not say I am a cat person… but somehow they do wiggle their way into your heart, so that you no longer mind when they walk all over your keyboard when you’re composing that important email to your boss or start scratching at your door, which you shut to concentrate for that important video call, all because well, the door was shut… it is, after all just a cute thing they do.

Now with a single pet, this human interaction undoubtedly is charming… but with 2, a new layer of interaction unfolds. Not only do you get your interaction, but you also get to watch how they interact with each other too.

And, having spent way too much time, at home, with pets, during lockdown, what I have come to release is that there are extra layers of cat politics and dynamics I simply did not understand before.

Reality check

In my human reality, for years I simply thought one of them was timid, running away at the slightest noise I made… yet now I discover that maybe the real problem is not me, the human… but actually the other cat…

This is the friendly one, but in cat world I am beginning to suspect may actually be just the pushy one, intimidating its way around the other just to get more food. Through observation, my perspective has changed.

And, needless to say, with increasing age, and a less active lifestyle it is leading to weight gain… (for the cat this is!)… the result being they are now fed separately on calorie-controlled diets… with the pushy-one, has now taken to rattling the door petulantly, making noises to get the food it desires. Whilst the other, now simply meows at me politely and gently to get fed.

The result, one now gets fed the right prescribed amount at the right time, the other pretty much gets fed on demand, has doors opened and generally gets whatever it wants… and this situation has forced the observation back to the human world.

Being kind can create soft power

Yes, I know, maybe it is not fair and maybe I am showing favourites, but more subtly what my reaction it does go to show is that sometimes being kind and gentle, can be more powerful than being pushy in getting what you want.

It really is an illustration of ‘soft power’ and influence… all in my living room.

Have a good week everyone.

Those of you who know me or have followed this column for a while will know that I have an interest in observing some of the little things, and how lessons from one industry can be applied to another.

This week I found myself once again in the supermarket… this shopping for food thing seems to be becoming a bit of a habit! 🙂

With only a relatively small shop, this weekend I decided to use the self-serve checkout. This is something most of us are pretty familiar with these days, and as always it was a relatively smooth process.

However, I was struck by, not the wonders of automation, but actually by the level of trust that is embedded into the process by the supermarket.

Now yes, I know there is an attendant there and I am sure lots of cameras recording my every move, but they’re also must have been, at some point, a conscious decision to trust customers to scan, pack and pay for their own groceries…

Somewhere there must be a cost-benefit analysis demonstrating that the cost saved from fewer check out staff, minus the loss from products taken, not scanned or paid for (ie stolen) is positive. It has to be for these automated checkouts to be rolled out so widely.

Trusting Customers

And, I think that this experience really underlines is that in the vast majority of cases customers are trustworthy, honest, willing to do the right thing and be fair to the businesses they deal with. People are generally good people.

Of course, working in Collections, it can be possible to easily see the world differently. Customers tend to be behind on payments and after a few tough experiences, it is all too easy to become cynical, start to see flickers in the shadows, and think that everyone is deliberately avoiding making payments.

What the supermarket teaches us, is that is not really the case. By a huge factor, the vast majority of customers do try to do the right thing. The same is true in Collections and Recoveries.

Customers in arrears often have other things going on in their life, and where our worlds do overlap with our products, we can help them find solutions… indeed this customer support mindset has been a great area of regulatory focus recently and one that has been well-received by collections teams too.

An expert opinion

The other thought this week was in listening to the debate over the pandemic and just what to do next… needless to say there is ‘some’ debate.

On one hand, we have epidemiologists, trained to look at the bigger picture, developing broad policy and influencing decisions to benefit society as a whole.

On the other, we have doctors, whose concern is for patients more at an individual level, ensuring they have the right treatment customised for their needs and situation.

Sometimes the needs overlap and we are all happy, but sometimes they do not, leading to conflict. Ie Sometimes a broad policy does not make sense for some segments of the population or individual patients… and sometimes getting treatments for segments of individuals correct, can actually undermine a wider message on what is needed more generally.

It is mainly polite and scientific, but there can be disagreement amongst scientists, and all of this before politicians get involved.

A principles-based approach

And here, maybe, there is an analogy with financial services.

On the one hand, we have credit risk, trained to look a the bigger picture, setting broad, portfolio level policy to benefit and protect the company as a whole.

And, on the other hand, we have the collections team, looking after the individual needs of customers, advocating the right treatment for them at an individual level.

Yes sometimes, just like above, different points of view can arise, creating points of conflict that need to be managed. And, increasingly, rather than take a rules-based approach, a more principles-based one is taken… one that yes, points to broad policy but also provides a framework to enable decisions at an individual level, minimizing customer harm and do the right thing for customers.

It is not perfect… but nevertheless a powerful, yet subtle, technique that seems to be generating positive change and being adopted in other markets and industries too. Maybe this is something we will increasingly see a flavour of more publically and more widely too.

Err… enough said on this topic I think… have a good rest of the week everyone.

Yes I know, there was no blog this last weekend… with life seemingly returning to some sort of normality it has become busy again, and apparently, all it needs is a slight change of routine (an activity was cancelled) and suddenly everything is out of alignment and you’ve run out of time… Who would have thought that writing a blog would have any similarity to landing planes (or indeed running the trains), but apparently it does (albeit less dangerous)… but, everything needs to happen in sequence!

I have always had the plan, to try to get an article out each week, since I started. Largely I seem to have been able to achieve this, and this mostly has been a rewarding experience. However, with life somewhat getting in the way this week I decided, rather than push something out in the smaller hours of the morning, it was better to take a break and come back refreshed another day.

So here we are sitting here in the cold light of day (or an afternoon in early February) and it strikes me is that this was not just a lesson for weekend writing, but also for the experience at work too.

… of great plans

I mean, how many times have you had a plan, a great plan, one that was meticulously crafted and designed, where something has changed and all of a sudden the implementation does not seem quite so easy or even worth it anymore… (I can think of a few ‘un-named’ projects that could fall into this category… and I am sure there are more too).

The question is always what do I do? Do I stick with the plan, plough on regardless, all because it was agreed it would be done? Or, do I give up, throw in the towel and say life happens, adjust and move on?

It is of course easy enough, as a detached party, to say “move on”, but what happens if you have already sunk considerable investment into the project… a business transformation for example… suddenly the pressure is on it is a lot harder to give up.

Deep down apparently, as human beings, we are all somewhat loss-averse, preferring to not lose something than look ahead to what we might gain… now risk aversion is not always a bad thing, nor is a bit of long term planning, but psychologically it can also be a hard habit to break… and doesn’t necessarily really help us in building a growth mindset.

And, if you look closely the same process can be at work in our careers too.

Many of us have of course invested considerably, time, effort, and often money into gaining the skills, experience, and contacts to do the jobs we do well. With all that investment changing direction can be hard. It is easy to fall into habits, doing the same thing because you have always done it and fear the change… whilst all the time, time continues to flow in the background.

… and pain-aux-raisins

Sometimes however life happens, a shock or change of situation… which of course has happened to many of us over the pandemic… and suddenly we are shaken out of our slumber.

After all, many of our lives and routines have been upset… suddenly bringing into focus many of the habits we had before all this started. Do I really need to commute? Do we really need the second car? Do I really need pain-aux-raisins with my coffee at Pret?

But, most of all, a question of… do I really enjoy what I do and was it a habit or something I really find fulfilling, taking me somewhere to where I want to go?

It has been a moment of question… and (like the blog) rather than make a snap decision, carry on or stop, maybe it is time to simply take a step back, assess the situation afresh and decide the next best step in the cold light of day (or a Tuesday in my case).

For me and the blog, I will be back next week… maybe with a new style and theme, but certainly refreshed. It is always good to shake things up a bit…!

Have a good rest of the week everyone.