Finding Something Good In Something Bad

We all live with sub-optimal practices. This is particularly true in our industry where the cost of failure is so high that experimentation and innovation are inherently difficult and even institutionally discouraged. With Covid 19, the imposition of unwanted constraints has forced exploration and improvement. We should heed Winston Churchill’s advice to ‘never let a good crisis go to waste’ and grab this opportunity to improve our productivity.

There are many examples, let me mention just three.

Homeworking

Firstly, there is homeworking. Despite research showing that homeworking is more productive than office working, our industry had been slow to embrace this. I am a late convert myself. Now it looks so obvious. Cut out the commute and spend the time saved more productively.

However, although access and controls turned out not to be show stoppers, there are a few problems with homeworking. Without safeguards, homeworking can lead to mental health issues. Even those with comfortable workspaces need to build some boundaries between their professional and private lives.

Another problem is the lack of the unplanned, unexpected, informal dialogue that is so important to innovation. Finally, transferring knowledge and skills is surely harder.

Homeworking can deliver lasting productivity gains, improve lifestyles and be a very welcome new normal only if we can support fluid, innovative interaction amongst staff.

Remote collaboration

Tied in with this is my second example. Within today’s restrictions, we still need to meet, inform, discuss and canvas opinion. Annual general meetings, conferences and off-sites are important to decision making, establishing a collective purpose, disseminating information and promoting collaboration and innovation. We really cannot do without them.

Although digital representation cannot replace every aspect of physical presence, in many ways it can be superior. A digital conference might not be quite as inspirational or as much fun as a physical conference, however it allows a broader and more geographically dispersed attendance.

Many of our meetings can benefit from remote attendance.

Digital documentation

The third example is how we have circumvented the need for paper documents. Companies replaced dividend cheques with money transfer. Documents with digital signatures were accepted where previously only wet signatures would do. This even included some of the cumbersome tax reclaim and relief processes that feel like they have been passed down respectfully, and without question, from generation to generation. If we did not get rid of physical certificates, we got better at transferring them.

There has also been an environmental benefit from these three examples. We have lightened our carbon footprints with reduced travel and discovered that we did not really need many of the documents that we had been printing.

In many ways these have been a difficult few months. However, the disruption has forced us to explore alternative and more efficient ways of working. With just a little more effort we can make further improvements and bank some permanent productivity gains from this whole experience.

This is just as well. The need to have more efficient capital markets is becoming more pressing. Sometimes you can find something good in something bad.