Tales From The Frontline – Jay Leno’s Horse
In this ‘Tales From The Frontline’ Sandringham’s Chief Operating Officer Tim Grey reflects on lockdown resiliency, business meetings and Jay Leno!
I’ve been no stranger to working remotely and in recent years found that I’m most productive in sporadic bursts, and unsuited to sitting in the same place for more than a few hours, unless I am in the midst of one of these bursts, when I have also found it pays not to stop!
So, on one hand, home working has been ‘fine’. We have the technology, we can operate and support the Sandringham team, and Partners remotely, and I am in no way chained to the desk. On the other hand, I realise (not a total surprise) that I am a social person. Meeting, remotely for now, is still important, and the exchange of problems and ideas is still best conveyed (and understood) by listening to someone speaking their mind, off the cuff and without some of the moderation that occurs when you commit words to email or paper.
After nearly 10 weeks of confinement (I started early) I’m struck by other people’s propensity toward positivity. Most that I have spoken to have been keen to share their situation, but overwhelmingly get the point across that ‘it’s working ok’. It seems that a situation that is both unprecedented and grave has made us all want to see the light at the end of a previously uncharted tunnel.
Most of the time it’s the small things people do and say that reveal the positivity. Despite the sadness and worry that will have touched us all, it’s still fine to laugh when your Zoom call is interrupted by a 3-year-old providing graphic explanations of their toilet habits, or those of us managing to tap out the complex calculation in the contorted pose that provides the only permissible Wi-Fi connection, whilst also operating the washing machine with one toe, and prop up the new desk which until recently, had been known as the ironing board. It’s evidently possible to prevail, for a time at least.
This desire to ‘get by’ is telling, I think. It should be clear now that there are many things in business that you cannot control. Preparation, knowledge, and practice go a long way to dealing with catastrophe, but they cannot avert its occurrence. In dealing with the fallout, you need to have close allies, who are aligned to your goals, and therefore are also connected to your problems. More than ever before, it’s a case of identifying what things remain outside your control, and acting to try to reduce reliance on those who have little skin in your game, at the same time as committing to those that do.
Jay Leno’s garage is not like mine. He shuns the electrically suspect power tools, the ‘spare’ parts of incorrectly constructed flat-pack furniture, and the 14 tins of ‘almost but not quite empty’ white emulsion that might come in useful. This American chat show host and raconteur loves his cars. So much so that there was a TV series all about his garage, and the many valuable and rare vehicles that lie within.
He was asked once whether his love of the gas guzzling vintage motors was compatible with the southern Californian fashion toward hybrid and electrical vehicles. I think his response explains exactly how I see ‘post-COVID’ work (and life) playing out. He explained that, 100 years ago, we saw the horse as a tool. It worked for us, it was put to use out of our necessity to plough the field, to carry the load, or to pull the cart. As we moved forwards, we found better more efficient (and more humane) tools to carry out these tasks. Of course, we didn’t simply dispose of the horse. Instead we learned to appreciate them and to celebrate their strength, dexterity and speed, and to accommodate the beasts in comparable luxury.
And so it may be for work and for meetings. We have proved that, in most situations, we don’t need to commute, travel, to physically meet with anything like the frequency we previously did. But still, we want to meet. And we should! Let us look forward to meeting entirely because it’s pleasurable and rewarding to do so, and especially when our views differ. It’s all the more important to convey and absorb the alternate point of view firsthand with no screens to filter the impact. The meetings (business or social, definitions which might also converge) of the near future have elevated purpose, whilst our web conferences exist as a natural part of our functional responsibilities. This I think is a more modern balance, and I’m all in!
Tim
Tim Grey, Chief Operating Officer
