MacGyver Mode

A consistent feature of British television in the 80s was the import of US TV shows. We learned everything we thought we knew about Americans from Magnum PI, The Dukes of Hazzard, and Miami Vice; and how exotic you all were back then. But there was one particular show that initially puzzled us, MacGyver. Here was an insanely handsome and rugged former special forces soldier who didn't like shooting people but nevertheless managed to extricate himself from all manner of perils and winning the day by piecing together contraptions out of a ball of string, a box of matches, and a safety pin. Quite frankly, this low-tech, non-lethal eccentricity was quintessentially more English, and MacGyver was a hit.

I have some news for everyone who is currently planning "return to office" strategies over the next few months; MacGyver is making a comeback. We are now in MacGyver Mode.

In the early spring of 2020, the whole business world did something unprecedented and remarkable, it entered Survival Mode. Pretty much overnight hundreds of millions of office-dwelling commuters stopped commuting. Dining tables became conference rooms and video-enabled virtual meetings became the de-facto for corporations, schools, doctors, and entertainers. And it worked. And not because there was a carefully crafted and deeply funded business continuity plan (because most of those instantly failed), it worked because of the mass availability of broadband internet, cloud services, consumer AV devices, and powerful laptop computers and phones. Add in a mostly compliant and adaptable workforce together with a highly sophisticated global logistics and distribution engine, we effectively open-sourced "survivability" and should there be another devastating global event, we are better prepared and experienced on how to survive again. But let’s be clear, hybrid work patterns and behaviors are here to stay.

However, we can only remain in Survival Mode for so long. We are all displaying symptoms of Zoomphobia and now with vaccinations well underway, we are beginning to plot out phased re-entry into the workplace so we can do what all human beings desire and need; to gather and connect with our tribes again.

But there are some real challenges for us ahead. We can’t just whip off the dust sheets and pretend that we can go back to the way things were. There is a heightened awareness of employee wellbeing and public safety for starters. Simply encouraging people back into a “clean” office does not answer the questions surrounding the public transportation system, inner-city facilities, and support services. There is also no blueprint for what has gone before and from what we have learned so far, every business is unique and is coming up with their own plans based on business imperatives, employee culture, and brand identity. 

We do know a couple of things with a reasonable degree of certainty; not now and probably not forever, are we going to see everyone in person in the office, all at the same time again. Secondly, technology is going to play a much bigger role in connecting people in both physical and virtual domains as well as helping us gather better insights into how to design for the future and improve the employee experience through simplicity and automation.

But where to start? This is where our eponymous hero MacGyver enters stage left. Most organizations are looking at phased re-entry in some shape or form from June 2021 to March 2022. And we simply do not have enough data, resources, or time to totally re-imagine and implement the “future of work” in that period. So just as we exit Survival Mode, we enter MacGyver Mode.

We need to take a long, hard look into our kit bag for all the string, matches, and safety pins at our disposal and use that to create something that didn’t exist before. From a real estate perspective, this probably means de-densification of workstations, reconfiguration of conference rooms, opening more dynamic collaboration spaces, and better tools to support wellness and employee emotional wellbeing. 

From a technology view, we recently received some insights from our enterprise customer advisory board with the help from our friends at Frost & Sullivan, the “Future of Collaboration in the Workplace” highlighting four key priorities for technology leaders to address during this critical phase: 1. borderless work and distributed operations 2. meeting equity 3. interoperability inside and outside of the firewall 4. employee experience and managing fatigue. From a practical perspective this is being translated into the prioritization of video, the acceleration of unified collaboration platforms, tools for employee and customer communication, and additional high-touch services and support for virtual events and remote work. 

The encouraging news is that most organizations had already begun this journey pre-COVID and therefore already have a lot of the infrastructure and basics in place, what is needed right now is reconfiguration, acceleration, and optimization. Right now, a lot of our activity is focused on supporting our customers through MacGyver mode and we’re lucky enough to have a pretty big kitbag of our own with few tricks up our sleeve to speed things along.

However, just as Survival Mode did not last, neither will MacGyver; What is critically important is to have a parallel path for the total reimagination of work and in most cases, our customers have begun to plan. This brings us to the “Reset Mode”. The “Great Reset” as the World Economic Forum styles it, is an opportunity for the World to manage the consequences of the COVID-19 crisis collectively and simultaneously, recognizing that most of the fundamental problems we have in our traditional systems and behaviors were not created by the pandemic, but were brutally exposed by it. And this is not just a challenge for governments and NGOs, CEOs and business leaders around the globe not only have a duty to contribute, but they also have a powerful opportunity to embrace radical change and transform their viability and sustainability into the future.

So, what do we know about “Reset Mode” so far? Well, here’s the thing; every single organization has a unique opportunity to break away from the accepted norms (as they are redundant right now) and chart their own journey which truly reflects their business identity and brand and supports their people to be highly collaborative, creative and innovative. Technology will play an ever-expanding role in digitally enabling this transformation, and we are very excited to be a trusted guide and support for our customers along the way. We will have endured a devastating human, economic and societal impact from this pandemic, so we owe it to all those we have left behind and those that depend on the decision and actions we take tomorrow, to be positive, courageous, and kind. The future is bright, if we choose to make it that way.