My Glorious Seven Takeaways of 2020

The first year of the new Golden Twenties is coming to an end. As in many years before I use the Holidays to reflect on the last 12 months. Indeed, the year 2020 had a huge impact on all of us. Will it also bring real long-term changes? Spare a couple of minutes with me. I hope it will inspire you with my private thoughts.

 Not every travel is worth making but travel is essential

No doubt, I’m in the privileged position to travel around the world. I live in a very well, developed country. I live in freedom. I have visited 80+ countries in my life, went to very offside locations and to crowded places in contradiction. Travel is an essential hobby for me and broadens my horizon, every time, anywhere. Travel builds bridges.

I met so many diverse people and experienced different cultures, be it as a tourist or as a businessperson. That is a piece of my life I desperately miss, as I always found this mind blowing.

I had years in which it felt as if I spent more time on planes and roads, in conference centers, foreign offices and hotels than at home.

Since March 2020 I have seldom left my city. My business travel frequency became exactly “ZERO”.

The company I’m working for, takes the pandemic serious for very good reasons. This means I’m even ‘locked’ in my home office. We handle, store and transport medicine 365/24 around the globe. We take the Coronavirus and all consequences seriously, for the best care of patients.

I miss the cultural exchange with friends and business partners. A telephone conference or a video chat is a great help, but it won’t fully replace a social conversation on the floor. Never!

I admit, not every one of my business trips was worth making it. In some situations, a longer video conference would have had the same effect for less cost and a much better ecological footprint. However, there are moments where a serious conversation should be face to face. The variety of HR topics as well as important negotiations are just important examples. It works for a period of time as a good compromise, but is not an endless option.

By the way, another “side effect” for me was that I spent my vacation time in my home country. I even detected nuances of cultural differences. I found out that Bavarians are also Germans, but they are different from us - the Northern Germans. ;-)

Working from home is great but not always effective

When I extensively travelled and soon felt to be seriously exhausted, I often planned a day or two to work from home. There was so much stuff on my virtual desk – unread documents, necessary trainings, undeveloped reports. With some silent time and lower numbers of scheduled calls I was able to reduce my backlog. I truly loved those days. Now working from home daily, I miss those exhausting journeys to foreign places! Paradox, isn’t it?

Things have drastically changed. My calendar has been filled with virtual ‘back2back’ meetings. I became a “ZOOMbie”! Most of my colleagues and business partners became “ZOOMbies” too. The non-travel vacuum was rapidly filled.

Former email working time on trains, planes and taxis is now occupied with ‘important’ TCs. Therefore, I need to work hard to block my free time. As one of the consequences, I have limited most of the meetings where I’m the organizer to 45-50 min length. What can be discussed in one hour, can also be done in 45 min!

For the shiny future, I will plan for a better balance on business travels, office and home office work.

We are the Generation “ZOOMbie”

I’m convinced that we became the first full video conference generation. For many years I have been used to smaller and larger conference calls. First we started with normal telephone and later continued with voice over IP technology, be it CISCO, Webex, ZOOM, SKYPE, FACETIME, GoToMeeting or MS TEAMS. My personal record in 2020 was with four different video conference systems used in 6 business hours!

In the meantime, it became so normal that any panic attacks if the system will work properly have disappeared in almost all situations. I’m sure this confidence in technology will remain, and I assume even better technologies will make this part of our business more effective in the future: Electronic whiteboards, 360 degree cameras, better microphones, screen sharing and new visualisation, just to mention a few dreams!

Suit and tie create the image, but authentic character impresses the audience

From my point of view it is still appropriate to wear professional clothes or uniforms in certain circumstances (for instance at a bank, at a front desk at check in or in a plane) and also at a business conference. While we became “ZOOMbies” nowadays the former professional distance has been surprisingly adapted to come socially closer.

Even way before we approached 2020, I used video conferences with my team. I bet some of the team members felt not very comfortable. Of course, you could still sense that some still are not comfortable and prefer a voice call only. However, I believe we learned with the new medium – the camera – so much about our “buddies” in lockdown. I saw cats jumping on a customer desk, could learn more about the private environment – be it living rooms, basements, background pictures used, kids stepping by, eating their lunch, hearing the door bell and the video-buddy disappearing for a minute, and many more funny situations. Not to mention that we had to learn where to place the camera to give the best impression.

Honestly, I very much enjoy these semi-professional situations and the glimpse into my counterparts‘ life and therefore feel much more connected to them than before.

Finally when the camera is on, people mostly follow you and not their steady incoming mails and chat news. What a nice experience, when you know the audience is with you and not distracted.

A new Hygienic lifestyle, worth to keep it

I always thought, I have a high standard of hygienics, but painfully learned that I was at maximum a semi-professional. For instance, I was traveling to Asia in previous years and saw of course people wearing a mask. Honestly it looked very weird to me.

I could never imagine that this could be my own style, to protect others and me! I’m spending more time now to clean me, my environment and equipment – and it became a normal routine.

Watching movies or older TV shows, as a weak alternative to former live concerts, cinema visits, bigger parties, theatre shows and chanting at my favourites football (soccer) club ground with 22.000 others, is still shocking me when I see so many people at one place. I’m confident that will last some time for me, to go back to the good old better lifestyle. But I’m also convinced, that I will pay more attention on hygienic levels. Not a bad thing to wear a mask in a sardine packed airplane!

Logistics is vital and is recognized

Working in the logistics industry, precisely in the specialty logistics industry for BioPharmaceutical products, the biggest compliment you can get is: No compliment! Because handling, storing and transporting goods – in our case lifesaving medicine - worked smoothly, silently in the background as it should be.

This year people were forced to have different views on our industry. The probably most visible aspects were the grounded fleet of aircrafts and drivers wearing masks. People realized how fragile a supply chain can be if it is disrupted by lockdowns. Entire industries were impacted overnight.

Or, just think about the recent pictures at French and UK borders of thousands of stranded trucks and poor drivers, spending their time on motorways instead with their families over Christmas. The root cause here was not the pandemic of course, but a stupid mistake by politicians who think that an island could be an empire again, while the world became global and countries are united for the better.

I send my deepest respects to all co-workers in the entire logistics industry, who kept the stuttering engines alive. Many of them have been working in skeleton teams and/or are the front liners at our doors since March. I was so happy to see at least some of our drivers, picking and delivering important documents to my home. Having a word face2face with a colleague was a rare highlight in my private Corona-Alcatraz. It was my only real contact to colleagues!

Human Power is as strong as ever

Let’s start with a very practical example from early Spring. Our business environment has to be held clean all the time. Working with and handling medicinal products requires a higher standard of hygiene, as you can imagine.

When the pandemic outbreak started and lockdowns reached our daily vocabulary, one of our Country Managers was desperately seeking for more disinfection materials for the office. As you know the demand increased exponentially in all industries as well as for home care. I mean not toilette paper! I mean disinfection liquids! He basically spoke with pharmaceutical experts, organized the necessary ingredients and mixed it accordingly, for the good of the moment, to protect the associates and maintained business contingency, as every pharmaceutical shipment matter!

Our industry rapidly adapted and because I’m a firm believer in Sciences – including the trial, error and refinement of theses – it is just impressive what rapid pathway humans went since the pandemic outbreak. Millions of self-made masks were produced almost overnight by courage people. Multiple studies started to investigate the Coronavirus, the COVID-19 treatments and developed vaccines – in light speed! Meanwhile we have first vaccines on the market! This will help us to overcome the challenges of 2020 and will stabilize the economic situation. Who could seriously believe in this rapid development in early Spring? That makes me optimistic to take the good things into the next year and get a bit of my good (and hopefully yours) old life back as well.

Kudos to all who took 2020 as a challenge and worked collectively to overcome the pandemic. Kudos to all who helped people in need and showed humanity! Thank you to all my colleagues around the globe for your great spirit!

Before I will go “on mute”, I’d love to get your takeaways in the comment section. Do not be shy, I’d love to read yours!

#Staysafe

Yours

Jens

Ps.: During the last years I became addicted to a good coffee and had a capsule machine in my home office. That was kind of OK for the few days a year I worked from home. Now I changed to a real coffee machine as my “at home consumption” dramatically went up to survive the many back2backs. I’d say my ecological footprint will make a big jump by reducing plastic waste. If I calculate it through, I can spend the saving for fair trade organic coffee. A better 2021, for sure!