Time for Reflection, from our MD Duncan Cawdell

As 2019 turns into 2020 and another decade goes by (yes, a decade), we take some time to reflect and consider the passing of ten years, the changing in our world and society.  There have been big changes in our world both politically and economically, but also socially.

  According to Interbrand* the Top 3 Biggest Global Brands in 2010 were Coca-Cola ($70bn), IBM ($64bn) and Microsoft ($61bn)…how things have changed.  In Interbrand’s 2019 report the Top 3 are Apple ($239bn – 17^th in 2010), Google ($167bn – 4^th in 2010) and Amazon ($125bn – 36^th in 2010).  For note Nokia were 8^th in 2010...how things change!  Our global powerhouses are getting bigger and more powerful.

  According to the World Meteorological Organisation “The year 2019 concludes a decade of exceptional global heat, retreating ice and record sea levels driven by greenhouse gases from human activities. Average temperatures for the five-year (2015-2019) and ten-year (2010-2019) periods are almost certain to be the highest on record. 2019 is on course to be the second or third warmest year on record”.  Our world is getting busier and warmer.

  Credit Suisse recently reported that ‘The top 1 percent now owns 50.1 percent of the world’s wealth, up from 45.5 percent in 2001’.  So, the super-rich are getting richer.

  Given these changes and our experience over the last ten years, our biggest reflection is about time itself.

  Time is infinite, but it is also linear, which means you cannot bring back a moment or win back time, particularly when we consider that for all of us our time is finite, even if our impact is not.  Time is the most precious thing we have, but probably the thing we waste most easily.

  Over 2019 the biggest challenge we have found in our work with clients is trying to provide and create time – time to do your job well. If you want to change the status quo, or address climate change, or tackle wealth inequality – time and focus is required.

  If you want to get work life balance, then time and focus is required.

  If you just want tomorrow to be slightly better than today, then time and focus is required.  If each day could give you 30 minutes just to think and to breathe – what would you be able to achieve?  Not sure this is true – ask any parent.  Before you have children, you think you are busy, then you realise how much more you have to get done when others rely upon you.  It’s the same (or should be) when you make the transition from a front-line role to a people manager – you have to create extra time and focus to support those in your ‘care’.  If you don’t create and devote the time, it won’t happen – and most of the time we do have a choice, we just choose to waste our time.

  For example - If you ask a customer team how time they would typically spend engaged with the customer each week, it will be significant less than 50% of their time – our experience across clients this year, indicated that 20%/40% (or 1 or 2 days a week) would be typical. This is not a lack of focus, but a reflection of where the challenges of the internal business lay.  This means that the majority of their time is spent on internal/non-customer focus agendas – this appears nonsensical.  It’s a bit like a window cleaner spending 3 days a week studying the types of window they could clean, but only spending 2 days actually cleaning them.

  If you can find the time (oh the irony) to sit back and look at how your resources and time are being spent – you would probably be horrified at the waste.  However, it does take effort to put this balance right, to understand the right rhythm and discipline of your business, to get the balance right between functioning and succeeding. Those that take the time, see the benefit and gain a huge boost to productivity– which does deliver working smarter not harder.

  So, if there is one piece of advice from the decade, it is this – understand and spend your time (and those of your teams effectively) so in 2020 you can use it more wisely and get a better reward both at work and at home.  Now in 2020 you get a little bonus, it’s a leap year so you have a 24-hour head start – good luck.

  If you want 2020 to be the year you get the time to focus on what makes you successful, then get in touch, we will find the time to talk, and understand how to help.  We wish you all a successful 2020 – duncan@pureblueocean.com

 

*Interbrand.com