Episode 35 - Reimagining Business in a Post-Pandemic World

Speaker 1 (00:01):

People of earth. We have come to upgrade drug cosmic consciousness, DNA activation. Ready in three.

Lou Quinto (00:16):

Hi, welcome to Q and A on Breakthrough Leadership. I'm Lou Quinto and I'm Craig P. Anderson. Today we want to talk about something that is, I guess in Craig, you and I've talked about this in, in our pre-work, but it really has to do with re-imagining business. In a post pandemic world we've gone through I guess what you would call a VUCA situation where you've got a lot of volatility, you've got a lot of uncertainty, you've got a lot of complexity and a lot of ambiguity and things have changed. In one of the things I found interesting in a recent interview with the CEO of a former CEO of Google, Eric Schmidt, was that in the last two months, we have seen probably years of forward progress in our business. So today what we're gonna do is we're gonna look at re-imagining business post pandemic by looking at three things. One, we're gonna look at re-imagining the workplace. The second area that we're going to talk about is going to be reimagining our service, our product delivery. And the last thing we're going to look at is reimagining the use of technology and business. So Craig, why don't you kick us off and talk to us about reimagining the workplace?

Craig P. Anderson (01:25):

Yeah, Lou. No, I think it's, it's a really interesting challenge for leaders and I think a lot of this too depends on your industry, right? You know, if you have kind of a, the job where people can work from home pretty easily, you know, that's, you can probably find a way to let people continue to work that way. But the more you get into, you know, jobs that you may need to rest and you know, have the people in the plant or in the call center, you know, those will be interesting to see how those evolve over the next several months. Right. So we'll have to watch, you know, I think there's really two phases that we're thinking about here. There's kind of the near now which is, or the near future, which is until we figure out, you know, where we add on immunity or, or vaccines or wherever those things are and you know, how long can we continue to go this way?

Craig P. Anderson (02:08):

And you know, we have seen some increases in productivity even though people are working remotely, it remains to be seen once people can actually go out and about new things, how long that productivity lasts. And then I think you also have the consideration of I do have to have people in because of the nature of what my business is and how do I create kind of an environment that is, that builds up on that safety, whether that be through, you know, getting, you know, the various PPP, PPE or whatever, they're, whatever the acronym is you throw out Buka and I'm just completely thrown off for the rest of this, this recording. But you know, getting those things in place for employers because if you do want your employees to come back, you've got to figure out a way for them to feel safe.

Craig P. Anderson (02:45):

So how are you going to build those safety regulations in and accommodate, you know, the worker who says, yeah, I'd like to be in the office. I guess the third leg of that for me is, you know, I've had some clients who surveyed their, their employee base and while they feel pretty productive, what they really say they miss the most is I missed interacting with my fellow employees. Right? It's something in my old business we kind of built this, you know, social area for these kinds of accidental, you know, bumping conversations. Right. That happened. Intentional. Intentional, thank you. Yeah. And what happens when those go away? Right? Over the longterm, over a couple of months maybe then nothing really happens, but what happens over the next year when some of that side work that happens just in the hallway chatter? Do we adapt to that or do we start losing because of that? I think those will be interesting conversations for us to have.

Lou Quinto (03:33):

Yeah. Well [inaudible] I think you sent me an article too from the New York times just a couple of weeks ago and talked about how the, the pendulum has swung so far to the, you know, work at home situation and you know, God knows we're not great prognosticators on anything. We're just reporting on how business is going to be affected. And I think one of the things that we'll see is that it, I don't think we'll go back to the way we were. W I everybody has said we're not going to go back to the way we work, but I think in many instances what you're going to find is that there are going to be companies that have found that this is rewarding to them and they can maintain productivity and they will then take and expand their workforce to be working from home as opposed to the original size of the work from home workforce prior to the pandemic.

Lou Quinto (04:26):

So I think you're going to see an expansion. I don't think you're going to see a total because what the, they said only 65% of America is actually working from home right now. But I think you'll see that number drop a little bit. But I think companies are going to see some advantages in addition to that, the new generation generation Z, you know, you've, you've got them coming into the workforce right now and they have already said that they are looking for jobs that offer them flexible work schedules and the remote workforce allows them to have that flexible schedule, which many of us are experiencing right now. And I don't think that feeling is going to go away now. I agree a hundred percent with you on the social. We need to have that opportunity for that social interaction. But a lot of companies from my discussions with clients and prospective clients is that they're finding ways to do it even through zoom, through zoom, happy hours.

Lou Quinto (05:22):

And when I use zoom, let me just make sure you know who's zoom, isn't it right now? Like Kleenex, you grab a tissue or tissue, ask for Kleenex. But any platform that we have that we can meet on, people are finding ways to have that social interaction. So we really, going back to, you know what Eric Schmidt said, I think in just the last two months, we have really moved forward in progress. Now how much is going to stay? I don't know. But when it comes to the workplace that that is something that is going to be looked at and there will be changes, no question about that.

Craig P. Anderson (05:55):

Yeah. I think it's going to evolve over the next few months and we're going to kind of see how that goes. So that's, that's kind of the internal work, right? That's kind of the workplace discussion. Right. The other area that we've talked about is, you know, what about the external, what about how we deliver our products and services to clients? So why don't you kick us off with that piece?

Lou Quinto (06:13):

Yeah. There's no question that we're going to have to reimagine how we're going to be delivering services and products to our clients. We've experienced it in the last few months. I know in my business as someone who 98% of my job is working in front of people doing training, doing keynote speeches, my business has changed entirely. I'm doing so many webinars before, which I have to say up until two months ago, I backed off webinars a little bit only because I, one is an individual. I liked, I thrive on an audience in their reaction to different things. But at the same time, what I have found is that when it comes to those webinars, that engagement creating that excitement and participation really diminishes. But I have to look at redesigning a lot of coursework now to be able to be delivered online.

Lou Quinto (07:05):

I think teachers in elementary schools and high schools and in college have proved that they've been really resilient over the last two months to be able to, on a dime, stop delivering their curriculum in a classroom way and be able to go online to deliver their curriculum to their students. And I don't think those learnings are going to go away. The other thing too is when it comes to health care, we've got a lot of now, you know, getting online and they're being able to go through telehealth. That's the word I'm looking for. And doctors are reporting that 80% of their patient visits are through telehealth. And that is something that the medical community also has resisted for a long period of time. But again, when we were told, you know, to take place in shelter, all of a sudden that became something that we needed to do. It was a necessity. So I think you're going to find a lot of services and a lot of products are going to be delivered in different ways.

Craig P. Anderson (08:04):

Yeah. I think, you know, we'll, we'll see. You know, I think there's forever and there's for now. Right. And you know, I think some of these things that we're seeing are for now, and we don't really know, you know, what the long term aspects are those, you know, when you talk, when we talk about things, you know, on the school side, right. You know, let's set aside kind of K through 12 and college training versus the kind of work that you and I do. And doing seminars and training, you know, that's, you know, having kids be at home, taking online classes, you know, how sustainable is that long term. Right? And what are the learnings, you know, and it's one thing to do that with it with a 14 year old. It's another thing to do that with a five-year-old with an attention span of, you know, seven or eight minutes.

Craig P. Anderson (08:39):

Right? So I think we're going to have to kind of see how some of these things balance out, but I could see where people, especially on kind of the work we do doing a lot more, you know, workshops and you know, not having people travel. You know, there was, you know, back when I worked for chase, you know, there was always kind of the requisite travels into New York city and when I was at Sallie Mae, it was the requisite of travels to rest and or to the call center down in Panama city. You know, that kind of travel. I could absolutely see going away over time because Hey, we can replace that with an online experience. Sales I think is an interesting piece and I think it probably breaks down to the kind of sales that you're doing, right? You know, there's a lot of sales that are done, probably not by handshake anymore, but deals that get done because they're relationship driven deals and a lot of big deals get driven that way.

Craig P. Anderson (09:23):

You know, it depends if you're selling more of a commodity, if you're selling more B to C, maybe a lot of that can be done directly or you know, by this medium. So. So I think it'll be interesting to see which pieces and parts go which way and how much of those, how many of those things reset a bit once we feel we're at a point where people can be out more, right. You know, whatever that timeline is, you know, be that 20, 20, 20, 21 or 2030 we'll find out what that kind of starts to shift back. So it'll be an interesting piece to watch

Lou Quinto (09:50):

Either way. I think when it comes to our services and our products, every industry, the Pandora's box has been opened. And for those companies that are going to be very innovative and creative, and how can we do things more efficiently, how can we do more effectively? How can we deliver our products and services more conveniently, more economically? I think that's part of the reimagining of the services that we'll go through. So let's go ahead and take the third area. And that third area is reimagining the use of technology. And I think if anything, we have learned that technology is not just a optional in our life. We're dependent on it. And this pandemic situation over the last two months has proven that technology is essential, but it's exposed a lot of vulnerabilities with our technology, access to broadband and some you being here in Indianapolis or if you're in New York city or Chicago or LA you've got broadband is really not an issue.

Lou Quinto (10:48):

You have access to it. But there are remote parts of this country where broadband is not as easily accessible as everything else. But even for those people like you and I who have broadband right in our house and have our wifi and we've got good speeds, all of a sudden now you've got an entire family working from home schooling from home, and the amount of traffic on your broadband begins to really start to choke up. And even I live alone and I've got wifi, I'll hope to myself. But I know that I've got neighbors that surround me, that there are two or three or four people in the house that are using the broadband on a daily basis. And I'm finding that my speed and my connection tends to drag a little bit at peak times during the day, only because everyone in the neighborhood now is using that broadband line and it's starting to choke up from the neighborhood standpoint. So I think you've got a lot of situations when it comes to wifi and the internet, that it's not just a luxury anymore. It's a necessity.

Craig P. Anderson (11:52):

Yeah. And it's, it's interesting to see how much that will drive kind of pushing faster broadband speeds where you already have good access to it. And then pushing broadband further out into the more rural areas where we haven't seen it, which there's a whole lot of issues tied around, you know, that, that, you know, discrepancy and accessibility. But you know, maybe we'll see now if we do see this big shift to working from home and putting more, more and more people remote. Maybe what we'll see is in addition, you know, we'll start seeing more of a value reason for companies to invest and start spending a lot more money on broadband internet. So, you know, I think to get it out into the more remote areas, what companies really need is a financial incentive to do it. And how I think we may see, Hey look, I need this fast speed out here.

Craig P. Anderson (12:33):

You know, not even that far out of the country, right. Like 15 miles away from Indianapolis probably for our purposes. But it will be interesting to see now that if we do see this increase in work from home and more remote work, will we start to see more of a financial incentive for companies to actually, you know, pay or participate in the cost of getting that pushed out into the, into more rural areas, which I think ultimately is a net net good. Even, you know, I have one client who lives in there in a pretty rural state and that's the one big challenge. They have their employees feel productive. They do miss people a bit, but you know, right now for some of them it's just they live in a place where there's not great speeds. Hold up a bit by that. And I think, you know, the other point is, you know, which of these kinds of mainframe systems that are still out kicking around that also are going to need updates and, or at least layers put on top of them that make them easier to access this way. So you know, I think you're going to start to see companies having to invest in a technology platform that allows them to do that if they haven't already made it, made that switch, that switch. You know you still have some States that have really old antiquated platforms and that could be a real bright spot economically in the next few years. Is that spending to ramp those to get those back up? You know

Lou Quinto (13:42):

There's definitely job opportunities there and everything else and I think we've seen it so many States all of a sudden with you know two 30 million people collecting unemployment. All of a sudden the state computers just choked up and they could not provide, you know, the people filling out applications online, they couldn't get responses out on time and working with a lot of companies like you do. I know that there are a lot of companies that are using old legacy cobalt type system Fortran and unfortunately they've been patching using duct tape and crazy glue for years. And you mentioned just layering more technology onto it. I think a lot of companies are going to have to reimagine is the legacy system that they have truly the workhorse, that it needs to be in the future. And if not, those expenditures are going to have to be made to create new systems that are modern UpToDate that can be very flexible, they can be very user friendly and people who service them are still working, which is what the old system, the old legacy systems, you know, all Bob and Susan and Harold, they retired 10 years ago and they're not here to service the system anymore.

Lou Quinto (14:52):

So re-imagining those workhorses, those backend legacy systems is something not only companies are going to have to do, but state and federal government as well. And I think we've seen that example highlighted in the last couple of weeks. Excuse me.

Craig P. Anderson (15:07):

Yeah, no, I think we're going to see that more and more. So yeah, so I think, you know, there's a lot going on. You know, as Lou said, you know, we are not prognosticators. We have lots of opinions, but we're not prognosticators. But we do think these are some important areas for leaders to be considering as they're looking at, you know, not only the next, you know, six to 12 months, but as they're looking at, you know, leaders really want to position themselves to be looking out three years into the future and kind of on the other side of some of these issues. All right, so Lou, what are your key takeaways from our conversation today?

Lou Quinto (15:36):

The key takeaway that I come out of all of this, I'm just gonna make it simple, is re-imagining, re-imagining every part of your business, using your creativity, you and being innovative by implementing things and seizing the opportunity to really adjust to what we have been thrown into over the last few months that has really exposed a lot of our vulnerabilities, but it's also given us a lot of opportunities as well.

Craig P. Anderson (16:04):

Yeah, I think, and you know, maybe kind of a flip side to that is I think my key takeaway is, you know, there's a lot for leaders to be considering right now, but you know, there's forever and there's for now and let's try to be pretty discerning on the things that we're, you know, it's really hard to see what this all means when you're in the heat of it and you know, trying to CERN what's forever and what's for now and try and really make the judicious decisions that are going to allow you to succeed longterm. So, so that's where I would put some of the focus.

Lou Quinto (16:32):

Yeah. And I think strategy is going to be somewhere between your forever and for now.

Craig P. Anderson (16:37):

Absolutely. All right, well that's it for this episode of Q and A on Breakthrough Leadership. If you liked our content, please like, share, subscribe, share it with your friends. There's a lot of conversation going on and we're excited to be a part of it. If you have thoughts, drop them in the comments for us as well. And we're also available on all your podcasting platforms. So if you would prefer to listen to us rather than see our beautiful faces walking through this content especially when we're both kind of working from home here. You can listen to us on all your, find us on all your favorite podcasting platforms. So until next time, I'm Craig Anderson

Lou Quinto (17:08):

And keep your hands washed and keep your distance. I'm Lou Quinto.

Speaker 4 (17:26):

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