It’s been a while! Over a year actually. And now I’m going to be a hypocrite and talk about actions.

It’s something that we take for granted. I think as highly technical folks, or folks that deal in absolutes, we tend to take words at face value. When someone says they’re going to do something we believe them (or not). When someone says something is true, we trust them. Why do we ignore actions? It’s almost like we can be blind to them sometimes.

It’s a particularly tough time right now to be in the technology industry. We see ‘reduction-in-force’ movements, we see automation of what we think is our value to our organization, we hear the words ‘do-less-with-more’.

All of this puts folks in a tough position, and especially technical folks. Generally speaking, technical folks are trusting, hard working individuals that deal in absolutes, right? The thought – “My work can be measured, and all the work I do moves up some gauge on my boss’ dashboard, so my value is irrefutable”. I think there are a lot of folks who are feeling like ‘an employee number’. I think there are a lot of people that are worried their number is going to come up in the ‘corporate bingo tumbler of doom’.

It’s going to. It’s not a question of if, it’s a question of when. So plan for it right now. I’ve been through several ‘RIFs’ and I used to worry, a lot. I have a young family and I worry about them everyday. So I decided, worrying sucks, so I need to fix this. I put a plan in place, I exercise it regularly. Although it would be devastating for me to be forced out of my current role/job/company, my family would be okay. So would yours.

The only question is, do you have a plan? It’s the difference between responding to a threat actor in real time with or without a playbook. Have a playbook. Know what you would do.

So what can we do (outside of being ready)? OBSERVE.

Right now is the time, look at the people in your organization and the way they are responding to the financial climate around them. Watch their approach to handling these challenging times. It’s not their words, it’s their actions. People say what they think others want to hear, they do what they need to do to survive. Words are easy to translate because you hear all of them, actions need to be catalogued and examined in your mind.

If you’re part of a company that has recently reduced their staff as a cost saving measure, look at the leaders as they dealt with that. Were they transparent? Were they accountable? Were they available? How did they communicate? Think about how they respond to turbulence on a daily basis, when things go wrong. Are these responses congruent? Are you noticing different behavior?

Furthermore, how are your coworkers responding? How are you responding? Are you supporting each other? It’s so important to be a good human. Help where you can, be empathetic, push forward.

We all want to be treated with respect and valued, no matter where we are or what we are doing. The last 5 years in technology (and business) have been mostly without turbulence. Watch those around you and how they deal with the turbulence now. Evaluate your response and where you’re not prepared (or you don’t feel prepared), make a plan now, not when you’re devastated. Pilots don’t write emergency checklists as the planes are going down, it would directly impact the quality of the checklist.

That’s all for now… Hopefully it’s not another year.