Episode 24: Episode #24: Best leadership practices during the Covid-19 pandemic.

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Welcome.

Welcome to the IBM Keep It Simple Technology Podcast. I am your host once again, Thomas Anglero, Nordic Director of Innovation. And on in this episode, we have a friend of mine, the— he corrected me and he wanted to make sure I get this right— the Managing Director of the American Chamber of Commerce, Jason Turflinger. And also, he's also a fellow cyclist, but ladies and gentlemen, he's like me. We are the worst cyclists ever. Jason, welcome to the show. How are you?

Thank you. Thank you very much, Thomas. I appreciate that. It's good to be with you. You know, speak for yourself on the bicycle thing. You know, I can ride a bike. I can ride a bike. You know, I don't end at the, you know, at the top of the charts, but not at the bottom either.

So, hey, you know, as I was telling you before we went live on the air, I am proud that when I do my races on Zwift, I am always at the end. So I'll keep my reputation going. I have a lot of ways to go, but we're not here to talk about that. Listen, Jason, um, we've known each other, we were saying, God, going way back, um, over 15 years and something. Um, and you've been, you've been with American Chamber of Commerce here in Norway as a managing director for throughout that whole time, and you've seen the entire journey of— well, first of all, congratulations in building up the American Chamber of Commerce in Norway. When you first took over, how many companies were there, and how many are there today?

60. 64 when I started. We're at 235 now.

So wow, wow, that's congrats.

Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you.

Amazing. Yeah, you've done an amazing job. And as the managing director for AmCham, um, you get to— well, your job is to talk to the C-level people of all these companies. And you have a lot of them are friends and a lot of them talk to you and tell you about what's going on. And how many different industries do you cover?

22 different industries. And you're right. I mean, a big portion of my job is, you know, I've known a lot of these leaders of these kind of internationally oriented member companies for years and years. And, you know, they switch companies. Sometimes they switch industries. Industries, you know, ebb and flow here as well. You can imagine the energy industry when I started was a different picture than what it is now in Norway.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And, and, and today now with COVID when, when, when COVID— I mean, what I want to get to is that I want you to share what you see with having 200+ companies who you work with, partner with closely. What do you see out there in this market? Um, what advice, what opinion, what's— what do you just tell us from your very— you have an extremely unique position and where you're at. And remember, the audience here, they're all looking for what are the C-level people doing? What are other leaders doing? What are there any new thoughts? Is there any innovation? Is the misery that I'm in my company, how are other people handling it? Could you just start telling some stories that you have? That would be great. And yeah, please, the floor is yours.

No, thank you, Thomas. That's a big question. No, I appreciate the opportunity, Thomas. I mean, look, it's, you know, when this all set in in mid-March here in Norway, we saw it coming. It was like a kind of a slow-motion car accident. We knew it was coming, but none of us obviously knew to the extent to which, you know, it would impact all of us and all of our daily lives. Initially, you know, The thought was some months, we're going to make some corrections, we're going to, you know, do something with our staffing and our operations here to weather the storm. Well, you know, the norm now is the storm, essentially, and you're really seeing that with this second wave, both here in Norway and around the world. Immediately, a lot of these companies kind of implemented worldwide, or multinational companies implemented worldwide, you know, kind of initiatives of, you know, work from home and do this and do that, and, you know, each office around the world was the same, and then over time, you started to see some kind of localization of these rules. You know, Norway is a different place than Indiana, where I'm originally from, for example. So, you know, they kind of adapted here, but, you know, with the idea that, you know, slowly but surely, we're going to work our way through this. But now, with the second round, you're seeing some more cutbacks in these companies. You're seeing specific industries that weren't impacted initially now very impacted. And, you know, with the hotel restaurant guys, you know, they've been impacted throughout. And it's, you know, the investors are getting more and more antsy on these things. And you're starting to see some real kind of cases of some big name companies, you know, having some real problems here. And I think you're going to see a lot of that going forward. You know, high-level managers of companies we're seeing now are beginning to be impacted personally in their jobs. It's not just them kind of cutting staff for operations, it's them themselves. So it's a whole new kind of era of cuts here, and I don't think, as we talked about prior, I don't think that, you know, we're going to ever be back in a situation where we were, you know, early March or pre-COVID. You know, the normal is going to be something completely different than what we've experienced here too.

I have so many questions for you. If you don't mind, let's just go back to the whole— I like— I'm just thinking, let's do this industry by industry basis and not cover all of them, just a few of them. Um, the hotel industry, let's just, um, start there. Yeah, they, they were pretty brave in that they stuck in. They didn't close down. They try to really, um, weather the storm from March on. Yeah, but we can see today is November 24th, 2020, and now we're seeing in the paper that, um Well then, some of them are giving up. What do you see from your side?

I mean, every time, and just, you know, looking from the AMCHAM perspective or our members, every time we or our members make a reservation to do a, you know, a big meeting or a gathering or anything at any of these hotels, it's with a caveat, and everyone knows that, you know, this is hopeful thinking, this is best case scenario that we're going to be able to do this. You know, I just scheduled something for next November at a very large hotel, and, you know, I want to see in the contract basically that, you know, we're going to be able to kind of go our separate way if things haven't improved by then, God forbid. I think we'll be okay by next Thanksgiving, but you know, these larger hotels, just think about the staffing and resources required to kind of keep a hotel like this up and running without guests. It's not possible. So, you know, whereas a lot of the smaller hotels kind of immediately were impacted, now a lot of the larger ones are feeling it much more., and these are big-name hotel chains.

Yeah, and you were saying before that a lot of these leaders in first round, um, in Norwegian it's called permittering, I guess, um, but yeah, put people on leave, right? That's right. Um, but this second, this second round, this is more permanent. This is actually the layoffs. But also these leaders are looking at it and saying potentially I may be laid off as well.

Well, yeah, I mean, this, you know, the changes in staffing and resources that are being made now are with the idea that this is what we want our operations in Norway to look like post-COVID. It's no longer about weathering the storm. It's, you know, hopefully there's light at the end of the tunnel here with several vaccines, you know, having great efficacy in the trials. So, you know, as we look kind of the 2021, you know, what is our operation going to look like coming out of this? And I would say, you know, well, percent-wise, but a high percentage of our member companies are not going to look the same in terms of resources and staffing and footprint here. Some have taken it upon themselves to grow and expand and do more business, and some will be smaller operations post-COVID.

That's really interesting because I think you're one of the first people to frame it that way, that the thinking of the strategy thinking from the executive team now is no longer 'Let's try to endure.' It's now, 'Okay, we're done with that phase. Now let's build for the future.' That's right. But in a much more minimalist quantity, probably much more efficient, right?

That's right. That's right. Well, and, you know, Norwegian employers have always prided themselves on being, you know, relatively efficient workforce here, especially multinational employees are, you know, are very efficient at these companies. But, you know, if there's rhyme and reason to maintaining similar size operation post-COVID, fine, but a lot of them are finding that, you know, they're making worldwide investments and where do these resources best get allocated in a post-COVID world.

When you talk to these companies, does the discussion of technology like artificial intelligence or anything like that, does that come up? Do they say, okay, in this post-COVID world, is tech going to play a bigger role? Does any of this ever come up?

They do not specifically. And I realize I'm on the IBM Technology podcast. And I'm sure you would have wanted a different answer from me. No, no, no.

Listen, I'm neutral. We're neutral. You know, I always have a nerd statement that is IP packets don't care what networks they go over, whether it's— it doesn't— everything's fine, you know. So say whatever you're going to say. Don't worry about it.

No, no, no. But AI specifically is not at the top of the list. But, you know, technological solutions to things that previously were thought of as, you know, only people can kind of handle these or only kind of, you know, human resources can handle these, you know, difficult challenges. That is being, you know, kind of rethought on a daily basis. I mean, look, COVID, as we all know, is one of the greatest transformation agents of our lifetimes. I mean, it really is. It's, you know, think about your pre-COVID life and kind of, you know, just think about about something as simple as video conferencing. Yes, it was there. Yes, we could all do it. Did you do it? Did you do it, Thomas Anglero, as regularly as you do now?

Sir, I try to avoid it as much as I could.

Exactly, exactly, exactly. You know, you pick up the phone. If you pick up the phone today, it feels old-fashioned. You know, it literally feels like, you know, like, why am I doing this? This is, you know, horse and buggy stuff.

I mean, if you think about it, I mean, I watch my kids, they're on TikTok all the time. And I go and then they see me on YouTube. They're like, you know, that's so yesterday.

Yeah, yeah.

Pre-COVID, it was YouTube. Now it's TikTok and God knows what's it going to be.

Yeah, no, you're right. So, I mean, you know, it's just this whole and just, you know, when we, we, we, we, we run a lot of our meetings and business gatherings, as you can imagine, you know, digitally now and in a hybrid format when we, when we you know, could before this second wave of shutdowns. But, you know, just the instructions or the digital etiquette, you know, is there now. It's a no-brainer. Everyone knows how to talk on the phone. Before, everyone knows how to kind of, you know, not everyone, but most people know how to kind of, you know, communicate via, you know, whatever digital platform. And, you know, people are able to kind of adapt to whatever digital platform we find now. You know, before it had to be one or the other. Now it doesn't matter. But you still get occasionally people that, you know, technical difficulties. And, you know, the challenge there is that, you know, oftentimes it's, you know, if you're having technical challenges, you know, the problem is likely you, not the host or not the others. You know, you got to kind of do your own kind of list, checklist before you, you know. So you get some disruptive kind of nonsense. But otherwise, you know, and hybrid meetings are great because, you know, increasingly we're getting this nucleus of people together. Together in person, and then that kind of, you know, encourages those out there participating virtually to kind of be more interactive and engaging.

Yeah, and we see that people are needing to be with people physically again. I'm gonna say some secrets now. This has nothing to do with you, but I'm gonna spoil some secrets.

Go for it.

Yesterday I was at a shopping mall at around 8 o'clock at night And when I pulled into the parking lot, there must have been 15 young people meeting in the parking lot, having a wonderful time.

Yeah.

And I said, you can't stop young people.

Yeah, they will.

There's a will, there's a way. They will find a way of congregating and having a blast, you know.

What were they like? What were they like, 18, 20 years old?

18, 20, about 25. And it was warmer in the parking lot It was quiet. Yeah, there were no police, and so they were having a blast.

But think about your 20— think about your 20-year-old self, Thomas, you know, and, and what would be the worst-case scenario, you know, if, if some kind of worldwide phenomena happened whereby you were not able to interact in person with your, you know, your friends, girlfriends, whatever. I mean, you know, that would, uh, that would be devastating.

Uh, absolutely.

I see it on my 15-year-old, you know. I mean, God bless him, he's, uh, he's— they're doing all right, but, uh, it must be really tough.

And this is where I wanted to go. How tough has it been with you and you being the managing director of Ancham? What challenges have you had to endure with your company and making that transition? Because you're in this growing stage and all of a sudden, boom, you got hit with COVID too.

Well, look, you know, I would have loved to tell you we had 250 members at the top of this call and that was what we budgeted last year. And, you know, we have a nice, slow, steady pace of growth. We're a nonprofit organization. But, you know, sales are hard, you know, recruiting new clients is difficult these days, as you can imagine. We are lucky in the sense that we are very diversified, you know, 22 different industries that we work with. So, you know, at the end of the day, we're going to be fine. Frankly, we've saved a lot of money on a bunch of our initiatives. And, you know, traveling is not a top-line expense, obviously, for anyone, you know, these days. So, You know, we're well positioned to kind of weather the storm here. Staffing is the same, you know, but the way in which we kind of assist and work with our member companies has changed quite a bit. So, I mean, look, whether people admit it to themselves or not, first and foremost, when people think of a Chamber of Commerce, they think of networking. That's all well and good, but, you know, Gone are the days of kind of ad hoc, you know, networking on the top or back end of a business meeting that we set up. So, we have to be much more kind of targeted. We have to make, be proactive and kind of, you know, help make these connections where we can. And the only way that you're ever going to know how to make these connections is by being intimately familiar with your membership and your clients. So, we spend a lot of time on the phone, or not on the phone. On the phone, on video calls with our member companies, you know, and really getting much more in-depth than we otherwise would have or have been capable of previously.

Because you are the center of the hub when it comes to networking, and also what we haven't spoken about, what we spoke about a little bit, is that that the trend here in this second wave of COVID is layoffs, right? It's a lot of layoffs. But yet AmCham is the center of networking, and when you get laid off, what do you want? You want to be— get, get into a networking area to meet people, to get new opportunities. So therefore I'm thinking, wow, you then— have you thought about somehow creating some sort of, um, place online where people can put their CV, you know, you'll be competing a bit with the other ones that are out there. But because the American Chamber of Commerce, you have a bit of credibility where companies within the network could say, well, this person's from this company, they're more trusted, they're vetted a bit, you know what I mean?

Yep.

I'm just thinking off the top of my head because this is where we're sort of entering this in this period of time.

Yeah. And again, I know you don't want to hear this on your tech podcast. The answer is we do this on a regular basis. I guess the answer is we're small enough, 235 companies and partners above and beyond that, but we're small enough. And every day we are helping highly kind of placed leaders of companies be known that— let it be known that they're basically on the hunt. And we would be very bad at our job if we proactively you know, had high-ranking leaders of companies, you know, saw us as kind of a headhunting platform. So we shy away from that. But the second we find out some highly placed person is kind of a free agent or will be winding down their time at a member company, we sure as heck let that be known to the appropriate other companies. And this happens, like I say, every day.

Really? So you're saying that someone could come to you and say, hey, listen, I just found out that I am getting a package or something like that, or I'm told that I'm going to be let go come Christmas. Thomas, so they could come to you saying, can you help me? And then you would help them?

Happens all the time.

And how would you help them? We've never discussed this, so I'm— I don't know, just fill in the blank. How do you help them?

How's it going at IBM, Thomas, would be my first question to you. No, listen, I mean, you know, I mean, okay, fine. So, you know, uh, you, Thomas, you know, you, you get a package, you're looking for something And you basically let it be known that, you know, next year, you know, I become available and then, you know, find out if you want to stick in the same industry. And if you do, great. If not, you let me know what's of interest. And then we're basically gonna, you know, we're gonna let that be known and kind of guide you to companies that we know for a fact are looking to either expand or, you know, would be interested in a person with your unique background and skillset.

Yeah, to you this is obvious. And I think to me and everybody else listening out there is that it's not. And the reason why I want to highlight it is the— is that this is massively important to everybody.

Yeah.

Because when you find out, you go to work and we're both Americans, so we call it the pink slip, but it does— that doesn't exist in Europe. But right when you come to work and you find out that you've been let go, you, you, you go into panic shock mode.

It's devastating.

It's devastating. Yeah, it's you, the family, everything, right? So, and then you stand the next— and when you finally have an intellectual thought is, what am I going to do? So that's why I think I wanted you to highlight and go through it to it because the people who listen to this, you now have an option in Jason Terflinger and the American Chamber of Commerce in Norway.

Thank you, Thomas. I appreciate that. And, you know, we, we know this is, uh, yeah, there you go. We should, we should start advertising this service, uh, definitely. No, but I mean, it, it happens on a regular basis. And, you know, sometimes people aren't even thinking of us in terms of being able to help them in that capacity. But, you know, when you find out, when we have a conversation with We absolutely can. You know, a lot of these jobs, you know, wouldn't be posted and a lot of people in very high place positions wouldn't be interested in kind of, you know, putting up, you know, available for, you know, work flag on their LinkedIn account, you know.

Yeah, I know. It's just embarrassing or whatever.

So, well, for whatever reason, you know.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. For privacy or whatever. Yeah. And dignity as well.

Sure.

And And yeah, dignity plays probably a big role. No, this— I think this is huge because I'm saying and repeating myself, but I, I, you know, if you could read the newspaper, you connect the dots. This is on a lot of people's minds. So yeah, yeah, um, yeah.

And it's not just, you know, it's not just like the resources. I mean, a lot of these companies, okay, you know, um, you know, the people, the staffing, that's one thing. But you know, what were— in a, in a, in a non-COVID world, what would your Norway footprint have looked like? You know, and, and those those kind of prognoses are changing rapidly, you know, for better and for worse, you know, and for better in our case, obviously, is, you know, we are, our function is a lot in life is to, you know, have as much kind of US-directed investment coming from Norway and as much US investment coming from, you know, toward Norway as possible. So that's what we do for a living.

Have you Um, have you— what are some of the best stories you've seen of management, uh, or leadership— better than management, let's talk about leadership of people— during, during this COVID period that you could share with people? Do you have any stories of leaders just stepping up and doing the right thing?

Well, you know, I mean, Norway— and you've been here long enough, you know— Norway prides itself on kind of a, you know, non-hierarchical, flat kind of structure. And yes, that's kind of true, but it's not for every company. But I think the kind of proximity or availability of leadership for all kind of staff has enabled Norway to kind of weather this storm maybe a little better than other places. I mean, the boss being available and kind of there for the staff on a personal level, I think, has really helped, you know, the companies that come to mind immediately. You know, there's not that distance. People have unique needs. You know, prior to COVID, there's always this kind of been this, you know, emphasis on work-life balance. We're all experiencing the same thing now. And so I think that, to some extent, has helped kind of smooth the transition. What I do hear a lot of concern about from leaders is maintaining motivation long-term. When you're working, you know, day in, day out in your PJs. Or, you know, what do you do?

Is that what you're doing, Jason?

No, no, I am not. I am not. But that would be my, you know, my first advice would be, you know, get up, take that shower, you know, get shaved, you know, get some semblance of business attire, basically. That will help you set your frame of mind. But no, you know, how do you keep, how do you keep staff motivated? And, you know, I, at least, you know, here and what I, you know, I see a lot of the members is, you know, that motivation comes directly from the leader. And, you know, people can sense it, you know. And, you know, you can say everything you want to say, but if the boss is MIA, or it's obvious that they're not, you know, mentally where they need to be, that's gonna, that's gonna kind of roll right on down. And so, you know, you're seeing a lot of companies doing all right, and it's the strong leadership that kind kind of, you know, puts up its sleeves and just kind of gets things done. And there's also, I think, another kind of common characteristic with the companies that have done well is the ability to adapt and change. You know, I think a lot of these companies aren't— I know for a fact a lot of these companies are not focusing on what they were focusing on 9 months ago as compared to today. You know, completely different kind of business services and product lines that are taking driver's seat for a lot of these companies. And that's fine. You know, that's fine.

I think again, you say something as if it's so simple for you what you see, um, but for a lot of us who are inside these big corporations, what you're saying is extremely profound. And let me repeat what you're saying, right? And let's, let's make it very simple. That's the whole point of the podcast, um, and what you're saying is that those companies whose business models and strategies were still the same pre-COVID to they are today post-COVID COVID, or during COVID Those are companies who suffered, but those companies who were more adaptive, they actually have done much better. Am I summarizing correctly?

Yeah, and regardless of industry, I mean, you know, whether it be hotel, kind of management consulting, you know, technology, your industry, I mean, you know, yes, you can just put your head in the sand and, oh God, you know, things are never going to get any better, but, you know, these industries, there are front runners in these industries that are impacted hard, and there are reasons for that. And being adaptive is a big part of it. Wow.

All right, as we tail end this, this, this, um, this podcast, um, I have so many more questions for you. Let's, let's do some just really general questions. Number 1 is, uh, which industry, which 2, 3 industries if you possible, are the most affected industries you've seen of the 23 industries you The most impacted? Yes, sir.

Healthcare impacted, but impacted in a positive— these guys are working harder than they've ever worked. Hotel, restaurant, as we've discussed, also severely impacted. And then, you know, I'm gonna— third one, that's a great question. So many have been impacted in so many different ways. I'm gonna go with technology, actually. You guys are, you know, your service offerings and your technology, you know, perspectives and what you're able to kind of, you know this more about this than I do. I mean, just let me ask you a question. How many of your companies or your clients have been much more kind of open-minded to implementing your technologies now as compared to 9 months ago?

It's not just, uh, much, many more, but it's not just the technologies, but open to open discussions. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, they much more. Let's talk about innovation, um, and then let's talk about the different types of innovation, not just technological but cultural innovation. I need help to, to, to innovate the culture of my company because it's not working. It wasn't working before COVID And now with COVID it's definitely not working, right? So, um, a lot more of the soft conversations— what we called before was soft, but now it's actually business conversations, right?

Yeah, exactly. A long-term kind of like, how are we gonna exactly— what are we gonna look like, uh, 2, 3 years from now? Exactly right.

Or let me be even more specific: what am I gonna look like 2 or 3 months from now? How do I lead people who are so stressed out. That is a lot of conversations I'm getting with leaders today. Yeah, right. Um, they want to know how can they be a better person so that they could lead better.

Yeah.

And, and I'm loving it because that's the conversations we should have before COVID but thank God we're having them, right?

Yeah, yeah. Now you're right.

What industries you see were hurt the least?

Well, okay, so when you said impacted, I'm sorry, I misunderstood the question. I mean, you know, like I say, healthcare, these guys are just, you know, I mean, they can't find enough staff at some of these companies to kind of, you know, do what they need to get done these days. Defense was initially, you know, not impacted, or they, you know, had long-term kind of tendering going on, but that all changed several months ago when people kind of realize this is going to be more of a longer-term issue. Legal was interesting in that initially you saw a round of kind of cutbacks or, you know, hiring freezes, but every single lawyer I've talked to over the past month or so is telling me that 2020 is going to be a banner year for them. So again, I think—

2021, you mean?

2020. No, 2020. Like, they're nearing the end of this year.

Really?

They killed it this year and they're above budget. And I think a lot of that has to do— well, I think a lot of it has to do with, you know, conversations and how are we setting ourselves up for the future and taking some kind of, you know, business decisions that kind of maybe weren't prioritized previously that now are. And then when you make these, when you implement these things, what do you need? You need a good lawyer. So, you know, building for the future, basically. People taking advantage of the opportunity to kind of do a little more desk work than maybe they had otherwise done.

I love what you just said, building for the future. And I think that's where— I think that for me, that's the biggest thing, that the theme that popped out during our conversation is that to succeed, companies who changed, they were building for the future.

Yep.

Build for the future.

Well, you're going to see, you're going to see in '21, you know, who was, you know, you're going to see which companies were busy, you know, with, with, you know, implementing good ideas and structures and who maybe should have been doing a little more during this time.

Exactly. Exactly. And you'll have a front row seat in that whole thing with being there in American Chamber of Commerce.

Absolutely.

Jason, as always, you're amazing. You know, you know you are.

Thank you, Thomas. Thank you, Thomas. And you know, we are going to have to take a bike right now. You realize that?

Yes, yes. I look forward to losing to you too. I have pride myself. I will never win a race.

I look forward to it. I look forward to that.

Ladies and gentlemen, once again, Jason Terflinger, the managing director of American Chamber of Commerce. Jason, how can people reach you? What's your website, contact info? What would you like to provide?

AmCham.no, A-M-C-H-A-M.no. And you can reach me at jt@amcham.no.

Fantastic! Ladies and gentlemen, please share this episode of the podcast. I think— not I think, I know there's a lot of wonderful information in this podcast for leaders, in regards to strategy. For employees, if you know anybody, your neighbor, your friend, family who have been laid off or looking for a job, I mean, Jason provided so much relevant, insightful information that's beneficial for everybody. So Jason, from the bottom of my heart, thank you so much. To all you out there listening, thank you so much. Um, please subscribe to the podcast. We're on iTunes, we're on Spotify, we're everywhere. Take care, everybody. Jason, take care. All my love.

Okay, thank you, Thomas. Stay safe.