Great insights shared by cross sector business leaders

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We were fortunate to share the company , thoughts, views and insights with a group of senior leaders across a number of varying sectors at a dinner in London on 20th February.

A number of key themes emerged which we thought worth noting and sharing;

  1. We have come through the covid pandemic (some in better shape than others) . However, some things haven’t changed back from that period.
    • It has been a life sense check for some; the reduced travel time and cost, makes returning to the commute difficult to contemplate
    • Life spent on Teams for many: back to back virtual meetings, no down time and almost being kidnapped by meeting invites. The impact on mental health, wellbeing and long term potential for burn-out was highlighted
    • Life at home: working remotely being the new normal. Is it good for us to be in social isolation? How do we get our commercial teams (buyers/sellers) back to seeing each other face to face and out from behind their computers?
    • How we provide development opportunities for our people has changed – hybrid development programmes are the norm – factoring back in some in person group development is important.
  2. Change has now becoming the norm, with shorter and shorter periods of stability between the need to change. How we manage and support our people and organisation to thrive in perpetual change is a key focus going forward.
    • The need to be decisive when making change, people expect it – or change will drift and be taken over by the next wave of change required, meaning you are always playing catch up.
    • Decision making is faster, yet not always better and poorly thought through decisions take a lot of effort to clear up.
    • As leaders, it is crucial that we set a positive example through change and manage our own ‘resilience’.
  3. Managing poor and/or under performance in new generations is offering new challenges, with a gap between expectation, reality and awareness.
    • Addressing under and/or poor performance through the use of softer language that conveys harder messages; disappointed, underwhelmed
  4. Managing internal and external relationships in a work environment is becoming more complex – particularly with the rapid shift in how we as society and businesses need to adapt to accommodate an ever increasing diversity in the workforce.

Surprisingly, most of these issues and challenges are internal, people orientated and not down to the turbulent environment we are trying to navigate. They are also in our gift to manage.

It was a great evening and we look forward to hosting more of these events later this year.

Alan Thompson
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