3 years in, Heavy Meitheal required.

3 years ago today I became CEO of Version 1 and stepped nervously into the hot seat.

Less than 6 weeks ago I drafted a few thoughts to publish on this day, but that was in the PC days (Pre-Covid).

Some other time I’ll share my thoughts on what I’ve learned (loads), the mistakes I’ve made (even more) and what’s surprised me about the role of CEO.

For now though, given the times we are living in, I’ll share some of what I’ve communicated to our staff and customers over the last 2 weeks.

There’s an Irish word called Meitheal. Like most languages, Irish has words that are difficult to translate precisely - it comes from an old tradition of where people in rural communities gathered together to help save the hay or some crop of their neighbour.

We've seen plenty of Meitheal in our society over the last few weeks, be it in Ireland and the UK with the vast numbers that have signed up to help the Health Services, or have un-retired or flown home to help out. We've seen plenty of it in Version 1 too, in how consultants have dropped everything to help a customer or a colleague who for unexpected reasons just needs some help.

I’d guess that most cultures have an equivalent of Meitheal, wherever you are or are from in the world. We'll need a lot more of that Meitheal in the weeks and months ahead because it is going to be tough. It’s akin to going into a war, and in any war we need define what winning means for our company.         

When this war is over, I want the review of that period to say that we put our people first. When this is all over, all that will really matter is how we treated each other. Already there have been hundreds of thousands of people laid off around the world. I’m conscious that for many of those organisations there simply was no other option, and fortunately in the UK and Ireland the governments have intervened to help protect those jobs through this period – but for many, their business has literally disappeared before their eyes. For those of us who are able to, I believe we have a responsibility to our people and to society to respond in a different way whilst we still can. These are exceptional times and we need to think of exceptional ways to respond and for me that means preserving employment, even if everyone has to make some sacrifices along the way to achieve that goal.

We have hundreds of staff separated from their loved ones, often in another country, worried about them. We have people sharing apartments with housemates, all trying to work from the same kitchen table. We have Fathers and Mothers trying to mind children or home school them while trying to work. 

These are not normal circumstances, and normal responses shouldn’t be expected in such times. For us, it’s people first. 

Our second priority, after our people, are our customers. They're hurting right now. What are our objectives for this war period in relation to our customers?

Our goal is that at the end of this war our customers are saying ‘Version 1 really stood up here and helped’. To do that we've got to show real empathy for their situation. Our core values are our guide – understanding the reality of the situation our customers are in, seeking for and finding ways to help our customers through the crisis many of them are facing, and being creative and innovative in how we help them. 

Our third priority is to our organisation. This war is already causing pain. It will cause more pain, that is inevitable. The targets we were working to (and exceeding) a few short weeks ago will likely soon look like fantastical leaps of imagination. So, whilst our priorities are our people and our customers, we also need to protect our organisation and ensure that when the rebound happens we are ready to respond. 

To do this, we plan to come out of this war better equipped than ever with the best trained and equipped consultants, and the best tooling and automation to help drive our and our customers’ businesses forward. 

We also need to protect our organisation's financial health. We're normally very good at forecasting our future, now it's impossible to say what's going to happen on a day-to-day basis. We are keeping a very close eye on what is happening every day, to allow us to react quickly to events as they emerge. 

We also have an overall obligation to society. I believe preserving employment levels is part of that obligation, as much as we possibly can; but also where we can contribute to the overall war effort then we should and we will, and we’re working out how best to organise our employees’ desires to volunteer and help can be best organised and arranged for them.

I’m incredibly lucky to have a team around me that is united, has experience of these type of situations and above all else epitomise our core values. There are some people in that Leadership team who were around with me in 2008 when a severe economic shock hit the Irish and global economy. We had to react quickly. Then, like now, those who survived and thrived weren't necessarily the fittest, but the quickest. 

Three years ago when I wrote this https://www.dhirubhai.net/pulse/role-change-ceo-tom-o-connor/ I could never have imagined a situation unfolding like we are now experiencing. The fears, doubts and uncertainties I expressed back then would have magnified a thousand-fold had I known what might unfold. Whenever I've been challenged in the last few years (and there's been plenty of times), I've always reverted to our Core Values.

Our Core Values are sacrosanct at Version 1 - they have never changed and they never will change, but if there was an unwritten core value - it's that Irish word 'Meitheal'. It's times like these that determine a company’s future.

It’s times like these that test Core Values.

It’s times like these that people have to pitch in and test that Meitheal like never before.

It’s times like these where we need to show we really are building something special in Version 1.

On this side of the world the evenings are getting longer, the daffodils have appeared and the sun is starting to make its often short tour of duty - ironically given that in every other way it feels like winter is approaching.

However, if we winter this out together, our summer will be brighter than ever.