In February 2020 the world was at a tipping point.
CoVID was becoming widespread things looked grim.
It had the early signs of one of those zombie apocalypse movies where everyone strips the stores of toilet paper.
You might remember the scenes when everyone was starting to lose their minds and there was the start of an “every man for himself” mindset. Shelves were stripped bare.
At this time everyone was waiting for leaders to stand up and tell us what to do. Those voices were few and far between, but news of people stripping shelves was plentiful.
It needed a massive reframe.
At the same time the intel I was getting was varied.
Some teams were weeks and months ahead of everyone else.
Others were weeks and months behind.
All responses were uneven. No team or org was good at everything.
To get through this thing we needed to get the information out. They were wearing risks that they didn’t understood, and working out new playbooks that had already been tested elsewhere.
The video series
In a crisis, risk managers are going to stand up a command centre and do daily comms until the crisis passes and others can take the reins.
So being creatures of habit, this is exactly what we did.
On March 18 2020, seasoned chief risk officer Tom McLeod and I started a 4 minute daily open broadcast to the risk and assurance community on LinkedIn.
This was not the normal invitation-only “you only know if you’re in the know”. It was open, unsponsored, unsupported, raw, rough and clumsy for everyone to see, use and raise their eyebrows at.
The plan was to help people go after 1-2 things every day and be the leaders we all needed them to be.
It was also to give people permission to be vulnerable and not wait for others to be the leaders that everyone needed them to be.
The response was way beyond our expectations.
Mission complete
The broader mission is never complete. But for this project we’re calling it.
This was always a stop gap measure. The plan was to step down as soon as “the big boys” turned up and either mimicked what we were doing, or replaced it with something better.
This started happening in early May, around 8 weeks into our daily open stand-ups.
As is often the case with first responders of any kind – particularly amateurs like ourselves, when the Calvary show up it’s time to crumple in a heap and gratefully handover the reins and move onto the next iteration.
That time is now.
Thanks to everyone for the support and views during this time.
Friday coffee sessions will continue. We’re keeping invites open for now to those who want to join and those remain cost and sponsor-free.
There’s a few gems in our videos that might endure. I’ll add links on the website in due course.
For now, stay safe, take care and thanks for all you do.
Todd Davies
8 May 2020
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The launch video and video series archives. A time capsule of a historic period of time.