Resilience & Business As Usual
First day back, August 2020, Chicago IL
Originally Published October 2020 [LinkedIn]
It has been an…eventful few months. Back in March (or what feels like a decade ago) everything changed in the US, and our already lighting fast pace at Dyson somehow managed to go up a few notches more to deal with the events created and permeated by the Coronavirus Pandemic. Despite the enormous challenges, we have been extremely successful in not just reacting and surviving, but in planning and thriving in undoubtedly the harshest and most unusual circumstances of my career. I've been trying to organize my thoughts on what my team and I have been through and what we have learned, especially as we are now into the traditional busy time - forgive me for rambling a bit - as I said, it has been eventful!
In Supply Chain, one of the foundation principles is that of the 3 V's; Velocity, Visibility and Variability - the idea being to increase the first two and decrease the latter. It is behind every operational and strategic decision - how what is being done increases the end-to-end speed and flow, how it will provide clearer visibility to the relevant stakeholders and how it will affect variability across the chain by either input or output. As far as theory and practice go, typically, it's a great structure - by using this framework it ensures decision-making considers the wider implications and forces a "Why" to be provided and therefore conscious decisions focused on improvement.
From a professional standpoint this year has meant a sudden and sustained change in working environment and methodology. A phenomenal team spirit and attitude needed to be translated into an exclusively online language, internal and external communication changed across all platforms. From working within the 3 V's, it suddenly felt like we were in a full blown war with them: Velocity? Visibility? The pandemic has no respect for small details like capacity, congestion, punctuality! Variability? I don't even need to type a sentence for this…the past 8 months speak for themselves.
From a personal standpoint the challenge has been arguably even tougher - lockdowns, cancelled plans and a dawning realization that it wasn't just going to be a few weeks, or even just a couple of months but that through the end of the year and beyond. Positive energy abounded in the first few weeks, from sourdough to new exercise regimes, more home-cooked meals and long-ignored hobbies picked up again, but proved almost impossible to sustain. For those with children suddenly there weren't enough hours or pairs of hands to navigate Zoom class and worksheet after worksheet, for those living by themselves days were much longer and quieter. Work/Life balance fading into the ether, stretched working days, because if you're working from home and you're always home are you ever away from work?
Looking back now, the 3V's may remain the aim, however our success has been driven by upholding the 3 R's: Resilience, Responsibility, Results
Resilience
It honestly feels like an understatement to say that this year has been a continuous test in resilience, professionally and personally. Hearing 'unprecedented times' and 'new normal' repeatedly doesn't do anything to actually address the difficulties people are facing, nor truly recognize them - they are blanket phrases that are as base as "it is what it is".
Seeing my own team's resilience and attitude has been a source of enormous strength to me - knowing that we truly are all in this together, professionally and personally but also seeing how it is possible to still provide incredible commitment and a team ethic remotely. From the beginning we set up a network to check in on each other, we dedicated time for specifically social conversation, regardless of how busy it was, and have maintained it throughout. More importantly we have normalized asking for help, for recognizing the signs of being overwhelmed and come together as a team to support each other. That support may be simple transactional work, it might be a 15 minute vent or it might be more formal coaching - the point being it is there.
Our professional resilience has been built by reminding ourselves of our goals and taking ownership of our work. It has been built by leveraging our team ethic with our company ethic and the incredible support within it. I cannot stress enough how supportive our HR and Comms teams have been on messages of inclusivity and community.
Responsibility
The old adage about worrying about what you can control and not those that you can't has never been more true. What has changed is the scope and direction of what we can control and primarily it comes back to Visibility - ensuring that what information does exist is clearly available and actionable. It means understanding that the priorities have changed in what others need to know, when, and building new frameworks around them, being dynamic enough to adapt. By owning this portion, by taking responsibility at a time when it is easy to shrug and say "unprecedented times" my team, and in fact the whole company, have excelled at managing their workload and their colleagues and clients' expectations. Accountability during uncertainty has been essential to our success - recognizing limitations and exploring opportunities.
Results
Throughout all of the change, we have never lost sight of our targets. Back in July instead of simply reviewing our objectives in a mid-year review we authored our own departmental mission statement. It wasn't just parroting our company missions, goals and values, but a statement written by the team and for the team, devised to communicate to our internal and external partners what our core mission was. By unifying around that statement we were taking ownership and consciously planting our flags for what we were setting out to achieve. We have always been quick to recognize exceptional performance and the biggest challenge I have had this year is ensuring people don't get tired of hearing shout-outs, or they devalue, as there have been significant call-outs every week.
Ultimately, this year we lost control of the physical location of our work.
We did not lose control of our identities, our objectives or our work itself.
By reinforcing the ownership and performance and fostering the culture of recognition and openness I have seen a team swim against the current and move forward leaps and bounds. I am so proud to work with the people I do, both in my team and outside of it. There are so many people to thank and acknowledge and that will be a whole other article - so to keep it short, I'd like to thank everyone that I work with, especially my team, for keeping me sane and for showing what is possible.
I fully accept that this has been and will continue to be a tough year, but as long as we keep sight of our 3R's, we'll flick the V's at the rest.*
*That line is solely for any British readers, I couldn't resist.