Hi I’m Paul Darley and thanks for tuning into this issue of Inside Darley.
I’m actually reporting today, Sunday morning April 5th and should be a day of rest for most people but it’s certainly not a day of rest for our first responder customers are on the first lines of this so are our hearts and minds and prayers go out to you.
This our fourth issue of coronavirus updates. So we’re doing these weekly now and really want to be a resource for you our customers are a clearinghouse if you will that can help you navigate these waters. So in addition to setting up a regular coronavirus task force we’ve also set up an equipment task force that’s out very busy sourcing means of dollars worth of equipment for your first responders getting that in your hands as quickly as possible.
Internally we’re having regular meetings and communicating with our teams via Microsoft teams and zoom and WebEx and you know our office employees are working remotely where they can. But our production workers and our manufacturing plants are still operating at roughly 90 to 95 percent of our normal level. We’re even doing town hall meetings on Saturdays so they can participate.
If you are working remotely stay in your routine. One of the articles we’ve attached is from the Harvard Business Review giving you some tips on how to work from home you know as a business we’re really focused on making sure that we’re pivoting and positioning ourselves to meet our current customer needs but also the customer needs that they’re going to be having in the in the future because it’s certainly not going to be business as usual moving forward and we’re making sure that we as a business are going to continue to be able to support you.
So we’re all keeping lessons logs of lessons learned and we’re looking to wherever we can to get guidance from those leaders we really admire and respect. And the first three articles we’ve attached are the first is a podcast that I participated in last week from Dr. Ram Charan. Now he wrote execution with Larry Bositis in 2002. One of the greatest minds out there. Hats off to Harvard Business Review. They’re allowing all of their corona virus materials to be shared without being protected by their license. So we’ve attached an e-book from Harvard that’s really excellent here.
You are familiar with Jim Collins from his work in his book Good to Great and in that book he talked about the Stockdale Paradox and Admiral James Stockdale during Vietnam was in a hotel Hanoi a prisoner of war for roughly five years and it talks about how he survived when so many others didn’t. And the article is titled Why Confronting Reality is Vital to Success. It really talks about this need to stay optimistic but balance that with realism.
On a scale of one to 10 or as I’m kind of quirky I like to do things that way in my mind I think we’re probably 10 when we’re out of this word about a three right now. So we as a business are really preparing for the long haul you may be a bit disappointed as we went from I’m sure you were if you were from April 7th to the end of April in terms of you know quarantining and all the rest but where he is a business or even anticipating would be beyond that as is Dr. Ram Charan but we do know it’s not going to be business as usual in terms of travel and other things that we’re making that adjustment externally as well.
Lastly on his optimism my wife Heidi and I were out for a walk the other day came across some great chalk markings that you know that young kids had written – and stay positive and stay healthy and you know be kind in all of these great words so I posted some of those on Facebook. But you know just important that you also keep your sense of humor in fact I put it on Facebook with the hashtag #werestilltalking.
So I hope that there’s anything that we can be doing to assist you. We hope you reach out to us and again thank you to our first responders for all you’re doing. You are our heroes. Thank you very much.
