#89: Thierry Malleret Managing Partner of Monthly Barometer

Thierry Malleret who is the managing partner of the Monthly Barometer, which is one of the leading global monthly newsletters that distills into a highly analytical and predictive one-pager the macro issues relevant to executives and decision-makers across the world.

Previously, Thierry founded and headed the Global Risk Network at the World Economic Forum.

His other professional experience includes: key positions within investment banking in several global institutions, think tanks, and academia (both in New York and Oxford) and government (with a three-year spell in the Prime Minister’s office in Paris).

His latest book, co-authored with  Klaus Schwab, is titled “Covid-19: the great reset”

Discover more details here.

Some of the highlights of the episode:

• Interdependency of the five macro issues affecting the world
• The great reset on geopolitics and technology
• Regionalization vs globalization of supply chains
• How will the changes in individual habits affect industries around the world
• Mental health during this time of uncertainty

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Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Hello everybody. And welcome to the leaders in supply chain podcast. I'm your host, Roger Palomar, your managing director of ELCA global. And it's my pleasure to have with us today, Terry Monterey , who is the managing partner of the monthly barometer, which is one of the leading global monthly newsletters that distills into highly analytical and predictive one pinch at the macro issues relevant to executives and decision makers across the world. And previously to you , when you founded and headed the global risk network at the world economic forum, as well as in his professional experience, he held key positions within investment banking, across several global institutions. He was part of think tanks and academia, both in New York and Oxford. He had a stint in the government with a three year spelling, the prime minister's office in Paris, his latest book, coughed coauthored with Charles Schwab. His title of COVID-19. The great reset is very much great point of reference for the times that we live in. And he's going to be the main topic of our discussion today. So I'm really looking forward to sharing and finding out more from your theory . So thank you very much for the time and welcome .

Speaker 2: 1:06

Thank you so much for having me.

Speaker 1: 1:09

So let's start with a couple of pointers on the book, cause I know that you spoke in the book about macro reset, which you and Charles mean to affect several areas, including economy , society, geopolitics, in environment and technology. And I'd like to double click person foremost, maybe on the economic perspective. And maybe if you could tell us what you understand by the great reset in economy,

Speaker 2: 1:34

Right? So first of all, the book addresses the issue from a multiplicity of perspectives. And one of the very key points we make in the great reset is that you cannot look at the macro issues in isolation from each other. So in the macro big chapter of the book, we look at economics, geopolitics, societal issues, environment. And the point of very fundamental point we make is that all of these five big macro issues are completely interdependent. They concatenate with each other, they amplified each other, so they could not have increased his bank to have an impact on societal issues and vice versa. So when we talk about the big reset in economics, we start from the very simple observation that deer , and then Nick is inflicting a very major shock on the global economy. It's a shock of unprecedented proportions for the past generations. The only in terms of magnitude on breasts , the only comparable shock could be a world war like world war two . Even those effects are very different because in the case of war, you are natural is your carpet or stock and physical stock hiding to be rebuilt . And in the case of pandemic it the opposite sort of labor , the human it's not easing disarray and the capital stock is induct . So it's a massive, it's a boss, a supply and demand shock, which is going to do create tremendous consequences. Um , first and foremost, in terms of unemployment , um , seats would affect very many people's lives around the world. It's going to have a great impact on growth, which we can already see, you know, around the world , uh, groceries, falling precipitously in so many countries around the world. So the graduate said means that , uh , you know, national authorities everywhere in every single country, because every single country has been impacted by COVID-19, whether it's a small country, whether it's a large country, every single one of them has been impacting . So how do you reduce your economies in a postcode world? In the book we are there is that if the reset is going to take a form of, you know, all the policies that's about being put into place at the moment, in terms of the fiscal support, in terms of expansionary monetary policies, which are absolutely required to start again , to get the engine starting again, but what we argue, and this is what the grocery set is all about is that we cannot do things as before, you know, over the past decades, the economy it's a good economy , has grown in a very , uh , near equal and destructive way, an equal because social inequalities have risen dramatically around the world and destructive in the sense that economic growth has taken place at the detriment of the environment. So it does have a very negative impact on what we call natural assets in terms of our pollution, in terms of pollution in towns of a group of warming, et cetera. So the key items of the book is that the grocery set has to be executed in such a way that the global economy becomes more inclusive, more equal. And so it would require that the shorter contract be rewritten in several countries around the world. I'm also much more respectful of the nature and we can discuss it a bit further. It's a podcast, but it's a fallacy to think that if we roll in a greener way is going to destroy employment and destroy gross, you're going to have boss and at the moment are many initiatives around the world, proving that growing your economy in a way that is respectful of nature, is it possible? Thank you .

Speaker 1: 5:33

Thanks for the overview. And these are, these are deep topics. And also I will kind of build upon what you said and for making the point, which is extremely useful that indeed all of these are very much interconnected. I will go on the fact that, you know, we are kind of trying to breach more on the business side and double clicking on a few, but ultimately you cannot have one without the other. It's, it's, it's a very fine ecosystem, as you rightfully mentioned. And yeah, we are we're at this crossroads where pretty much, I think whilst it has been over used in many aspects, this expression of the new normal or unprecedented times depends on which one you prefer. It is true in a sense that things will not be back to how they used to be. And it's kind of up to us, whether we want to take a conscious choice and action to make it different, or, you know, just kind of go with the flow, which may or may not work. So I also wanted to go into the geopolitics perspective because we are seeing all sorts of things happening. It was happening already, the tensions in between China and in the U S or happening even before the pandemic. But how, or what are some of the trends, trends that you see from a job politics perspective as well?

Speaker 2: 6:43

Well, the best way to, to understand how COVID-19 the pandemic is making its way throughout my career issues is to, to see it as an amplifier of existing risks. So if you take economic risks, societal risk, technological risk, geopolitical risk, you realize that the pandemic as hard , the effect of amplifying preexisting tracks. So in terms of geopolitical issues, there were problems before, you know, between the U S and China. We saw them growing over the past few years a month, there were issues around the world. It is a fact that global governance system is in complete disarray. And there is no world anymore is that it's very little agreement between countries and regions on how to move forward. In many ways, the world has been does United. You know, we talk about UN United nations, but the word is fragmented very much at the moment. It's does uniting , whereas an explosion of identity politics around the world, you can see it in countries as different as Turkey, India, Russia, U S um , so every big country in the world is almost every country, almost every big country around the world is retrenching at the moment. And this is a cause for concern. So what the bandana has done, it has done the same, you know , throughout the ages , every time there's been a major one, dynamic was it was the Justinian pandemic in the sixth century or the great plague in the certain century. And today it leads to search for scapegoat. You know, that's how, that's how countries and human beings operate . When something goes wrong, we look for a scapegoat and you can see it at the moment most dramatically, and most visibly in terms of a relationship between the U S and China, it's taken a very, very troublesome , um , there's been accusations from each side about the incompetence or malevolence of the other for the first time ever over the past few weeks. Um , know even officials have been talking about a possible accident leading to a conflict, either localized or not between, between China and the U S. So these are very , very troubling times in geopolitical terms, and it's not only China. And the U S of course is the greatest game in the world today because we're talking about two giants, but you can see a similar issues in Europe, in Europe at the moment you have troubling developments into Arctic regions. There was a comment made idea , Swedish minister of foreign affairs about a week ago, saying that she was very troubled about some developments in the Baltic region, particularly with respect to Russia, there has been problems recently in the Eastern Mediterranean sea between Turkey and Greece, which required the involvement of other countries or other European countries. They are problems even, you know , something which is not very talked about, like the conflict in the, between us of HRM and Armenia. There have been incidents recorded over the past few weeks. So what coffee does done is to fuel the preexisting conflict that existed before and brings them to the floor . And that's a very troubling development. And it's hard to think about what could alleviate this problem at the moment.

Speaker 1: 10:26

It's a little bit like putting fuel on the fire and , uh ,

Speaker 2: 10:30

Absolutely. You're right. This is a correct image.

Speaker 1: 10:33

And how about technology? What , what does , uh , you , you speak about also the great reset in technology. Tell us a little bit about that from, from, from the book and from your perspective,

Speaker 2: 10:43

What did the book? We observed two things. The first of all, COVID has boosted tech in a way that would have been imaginable in the pre COVID era. You know, everything has gone faster in terms of tech developments , the world that digitize that to the critical place and many, many developments that were not foreseen just a few months ago. It was several months ago when it could be the start it have now happened. You know , I can provide you with zillions of different examples, but the medicine is the most vivid example, you know, telemedicine bird existed before COVID-19 , it was an issue beset by regulatory problems. It was very hard to put into place. And almost overnight that in medicine happens , sounds to compete . So, you know, at the moment, it's absolutely clear, I think to everybody, to every industry, that if you are not digitize in your operations, you are in big trouble and down to be a dad in a few months or years from now. I mean, you, you cannot survive if your business is not digital digitizing , um, you know, including in spaces that are, that were unlikely to be as digitalizing, such as , um , events and conferences. So it's happening everywhere. That's what I'm salvation. So take is the unmitigated and very clear winner of COVID on the other side, the way in which , um , technology has been used to manage or COVID, or to try to contain the epidemic is rising many concerns, you know , there's and tracing technologies, Arps raise very fundamental questions about privacy, about civilians and the way in which governments can intrude, you know , private lives. So it's very much something that tears don't act on. The one side is progressing fast, which is a good thing because it improves the way we operate and probably makes us more productive as a business. But the results are more troubling aspect linked to the fact that it seems that many countries would not be using technology and civilians and systems to , to intrude the lives of the citizens.

Speaker 1: 13:03

Yeah. And obviously some were already doing it, and now it can be, it can be back to the analogy of accelerating the trend. It can be used as a very convenient reason or excuse to do it even more from micro you. Also, what I liked about the book is that you then went into the micro reset and , and you mentioned industries, you mentioned business does, and the impact of COVID-19 there and , and specifically, and our audience obviously is mostly people that have to do with supply chain. You, you did mention a point there, which was linked to the resilient supply chains. And I wanted to ask you more a , I guess there's a sub sub question in there is if you see a trend of regionalization of supply chains and making it much more regional focus versus global focus that they used to be, and what's your, you know , what's your views. And tell us more about that point

Speaker 2: 13:53

Sexual harassment . Yes. That's an example of a, of a macro issue, an industry issue, some things that pertains to business operations, being an Arctic by your geopolitical and economic trend. You , you, you remember that at the beginning of the endemic in theory , months of the pandemic, but particularly when it struck the Europe after, after Asia, after China and Asia. And so in March, April Zula dramatic problems of supply in Europe and most visibly in Italy, as there were no PP equipments, there were not enough ventilators. There were not enough activate politics , et cetera . So everybody realized the extent to which no highly developed economies were so dependent upon supply chains in this particular case, supply chains from Asia. And so the same King at that time was that you need to replace efficiency, you know , just in time supply chains, efficiency by resilient supply chains that might be less effective, more costly, but they can provide support where it is needed. So that's something that made the news almost every day in March in April, in may your heart, you know, the speed of articles of analyses, of comments from policymakers due to the fact that everybody walked as a reality is that for example, 90% plus of antibiotics being delivered in, in the U S and , uh , and most of European countries come from Asia and India, East Asia and South Asia. So there was a compete with sinking among policy makers and business leaders saying, okay, what do we do now? How are we going to restructure our supply chain so that they can become more resilient in terms of crisis? Because of course, efficiency and tase fragility. You know , everybody began to realize that when you hire formidable efficient system, it's sorts of very fragile , but by definition, they necessity so many businesses, many companies, many organizations, industries, and countries are not thinking about how to be more resilient to supply chains, which they think in case of shortening a general shortening of supply chains. And it's already visible in the food industry for different reasons that have to do with environment. But you know , now as a result, the growing realization that we must supply shortened supply chains in the food industry, because it's better for the environment. So similarly, it's happening for the pharma industry for, you know , other industries that were too reliant on just-in-time time supply chains. And in the meantime, it's for none of them has also been accelerated by geopolitical issues. Um , I don't have a top of my mind the number of regarding this ablation from China to the rest of the world, they countries, but supply chain from Asia in general, there are very critical role in the industry activity and manufacturing activity of most European and American companies. Um , so how, how is this going to evolve in a world that is increasingly divided along geopolitical lines? When's it going to happen when president Trump decides that we shouldn't accept anymore FDA from China or supplies from China in some specific sectors of the U S economy with similar issues notarizing in Europe. So in this context of defiance, how is the global supply chain system going to adapt? What we want to observe in the book is that Zoe's at the moment, the phenomenon towards regionalization and sometimes organizations . So because of this conflation of geopolitical and trade and economic issues, there is a very strong bond for train leading towards Richard. That is an issue with some blocks regional blocks trading between themselves increasingly. So it's something which is particularly evident in you in a CRN in East Asia email , of course you, and I think it's going to be a trend that will strengthen over the coming years for all the reasons we just talked about.

Speaker 1: 18:00

I do remember speaking about healthcare specifically. I , and I might not remember exactly the number of good in , but somewhere like 90% of the antibiotics around there in U S are important and mostly from Asia or something to that extent. So , uh , which is insane. And the number you can put it into perspective, especially when it hits and , you know, your supply chain gets disrupted. So I would tend to agree that definitely , uh , you know, food and healthcare will be a particular area or bringing as close if not in the country itself , but as close to the borders. But I'm just wondering, and I want to swim in a little bit further. There's certain supply chains. For example, if we take technology, if you take, and I had this conversation with , with somebody on a, on a panel recently, the supply chain for making a laptop, for example, right, the manufacturing of a laptop , because there's so many specialized parts. And also I did a very good job at creating the psycho system, right? Whether it's, you know, on top of the fact that you have the plant, which I guess you can duplicate the plant somewhere else, right? You can put the manufacturing plant in Mexico or in Eastern Europe, Africa, but infrastructure to , and from the plant, or that's not as easy as snapping a finger plus the whole trade infrastructure, plus the laws, the regulations, the ecosystems, the finance , and so on. So I'm just wondering whether, you know, whether it's going to apply across the board because certain supply chains are definitely much harder to move and put somewhere else then , and also you need the talent, right? You need the workforce that is specialized and knows how to, you know, knows how to produce certain things, which may or may not be available that might need to be trained. So I'm just wondering if you , you know , if you also see distinction in between, you know, separate different industries being taking longer or shorter, or what's your thoughts just in general public ,

Speaker 2: 19:54

Where do I do? I think you make a very important point. And because we mentioned in the book that even those, there is this willingness of policymakers to , to shorten dramatic supply chains and the two real union supply chains towards particular regions and even countries that it's going to be much more difficult than we think for the reasons you've just mentioned. You know, you can't, you can't do it overnight . Or in the book, we , we give the example of Foxconn and in China. And that's exactly what you just said. You know, there were motorways built for the factories of Foxconn , the , where airports built boats , et cetera . So these are incredibly expensive infrastructure projects. And even if you were to decide that you bring them to an end, this will not happen overnight because the massive capital expenditures required to do it's expensive. And also it takes a lot of time. However, however we believe the book can asinine , but the direction of the trend is clear and it's going to the direction of shortening supply chains and makes it more, more regional. And , um , we also provide examples to prove the point. You know, Japan, for example, has put aside some money to help Japanese industry, to relocate in Japan and to fight supply chains in Japan. And there are similar examples that apply in , in many of the countries around the world. So do to respond to your question in just one sentence, it's not going to happen overnight, but the phenomenon is happening nonetheless. And the direction of the trend is clear on your second point that you mentioned it also at the point of technology acceleration of the digitalization of industries. And this is a big point that you mentioned as a micro reset as well. And , and you , you more or less say, there's going to be three main effects. And I just want to first start with the number one, one, which is the talent pool will become even more global, which will actually in turn push wages down and actually will, will further kind of have a consequence of basically the way that some of the jobs would be lesser paid. Tell us a little bit about that, because that again can cause some pretty significant issues in society and economically and the broader scheme of things. Yes. So this question of acceleration of digitization, we've already discussed it, it's happening. It's going to , to , to develop even further, it's a global phenomenon, and it's impossible to imagine where it could stop it's happening. I mean , it's an absolute necessity. So it's going to be global and the talent pool for digitization, for reasons, how do we stake is , is global. You can go anywhere and I can give an example. You know, I realize that being independent in that we're missing resources in terms of digital capabilities. So my cardigan chart on this sector at the moment, our resources are in France and in the U S so we look for someone who could help us with a particular issue. And we have the choice between Ukraine, India, Pakistan, and the Baltics . So, you know , and of course the solutions are much less expensive than they are in France for four reasons, to the reason, you know, economic development and standards of reading . So, you know, through my very small, tiny example at the level of my small, small, small business, I epitomize this trend. When, when you look for someone in the field of digital, you can go anywhere around the world because you don't need to meet in person. Everything is done on , um , on Skype or zoom or whatever platform you prefer, whichever platform you prefer. Um , so immediately the tunnel could become, becomes global because any information about anything, any supplier can be found on mine . So it's, [inaudible] that it's happening. It's true.

Speaker 1: 23:50

Absolutely. And then you mentioned two other effects of this digitalization that has been accelerated. And by the way, I just found mind blowing . And I want to , to add the data, just looking at e-commerce and the adoption that eCommerce , right. In terms of growth. I think it was a McKinsey report in three months, the eCommerce adoption worldwide grew as much as it grew in five years.

Speaker 2: 24:16

Crazy . Unbelievable.

Speaker 1: 24:18

Yeah. And it's , it's, it's just , uh , you know, I mean, I don't think also we are going to go back , uh , you know, the people that maybe were reluctant before this, and now you're stuck at home and you have no other choice, but to order online and then you figure out that it's quite convenient and probably not going to go back to the supermarket outset , this whole thing ends because it's a , you know , behavior is hard to change because it's just, you're used to a certain thing , a way of doing things, but also wants to get a new way is probably going to stick around. So I guess where I wanted to take your perspective, because you did mention two big effects, one, the winner takes all principle . It will become even more prevalent, right? Kind of the biggest players in a certain market or industry will become even bigger. And then you also mentioned that the need to scale up will likely favor large company to the detriment of smaller ones. Because again, I mean, you have economies of scale. Well , so tell us a little bit about this because it almost paints a little bit, or at least in my mind, and I might not be understanding it fully, but a little bit of, you know, this big companies will kind of are kind of taking over and you know, what could start ups do . But it's almost that, that question comes to my mind, right? When, when I, when I read this, so maybe you can tell us a bit about it,

Speaker 2: 25:28

Okay. With pleasure. Whereas the winner takes all principle is something that has been analyzed by so many economies that it's hard to know where to start. It's a , it's a phenomenon that is for as a byproduct of globalization and technology. Uh , you know, everything is visible and accessible. Um, it's a phenomenon that that's particularly developed over the past few, few, few years, 10, 20 years. It means essentially what matters is not the absolute performance, but the relative performance. So the winner takes store rewards, the winner, the winner, reaps , most of the benefits. And you can see that in many different industries. Um, you know , if you are to post reporting , reporting the world, you will twice as much as the second one, even though your marginal advantage is absolutely minimal. There is going to be the same engine music industry in the computer industry, et cetera, et cetera. So it's a , it's a , it's a trend that very much depends on technology and , uh , which favors inequality . So it has its downside. And , uh , it's very hard in a global market to understand how you can counter the strengths of this trend. And there is very little to do. And again, it's a phenomenon that you couldn't observe everywhere and anywhere, and , you know, through social influences , et cetera . So as a winner, ribs , automatics , um, it's happening, you know , at the moment you have one Facebook or you don't have a competitor, you have when Google, you don't have a competitor, et cetera, et cetera. So it entails that in industry terms, it's a big winners are likely to be the largest companies because it benefit from what is absolutely critical to grow, which is network effects. If you're Facebook, you know, how could you possibly imagine they could compete with, with Facebook, you would need to be network effects and that , and it would be almost impossible to do so. So what's happening at the moment. And it's a very critical problem for people who think about antitrust and monopoly power, etc , is that when you are a startup and a successful startup, particularly in the field of tank , your best hope is to get acquired by the large company. And this is what's happening. You know , all these large tech companies are incredibly cash rich, and they can buy pretty much any startup, the world delight. And, you know, it's happening . You can see in here MNA activity. So there are very few startups grow enough to become large companies themselves because because of this phenomenon of scaling up and in the world , of course, this goes beyond it's a real amount of tech. And if you are small, it's much more difficult. 200 capital required to , to become resilient, to invest in digital assets in everybody. You know, it never seems to require to grow out of the crisis. So what is obvious at the moment is that the pandemic crisis is benefiting the large company to the veterans of small companies and insights things that is well understood. There's the financial markets because of the Mormons . There is a premium attached to it to being big to the detriment of being small

Speaker 1: 28:47

And to kind of create a loop. And also I liked a lot the way that you've structured, the book that you basically, the last chapter that lasts , you have three big, you know, you have kind of three big different pointers and the last one is on the individual reset, right? So you spoke on the macro resets , just spoke on the micro resets, and then you speak about the individual reset. And I think that's, that's extremely valuable because ultimately, you know, it's the question, what can we as individuals do? What can I personally do? What, you know, I guess that's the easiest thing in our power, right? So I want to take some time to also go a little bit in , in this chapter of the book, which is, which is about individual research . And tell us a little bit about what individuals and what we as personal persons could do , uh , you know, after this COVID-19 situation.

Speaker 2: 29:33

Okay. Thank you with great pleasure. When from an individual perspective, you know , COVID-19 as hard, the effect of, of, of forcing us to, to, to think more about the choices we make in a crisis, deep crisis extensional crisis, I could lead favor introspection. So we just think about, you know, what matters to us , um, more, and of course the engine of the economy is individual decisions that we make us as consumers, as it as investors. So everything at the end of the day, but it's down to individual decisions made by, you know , billions of individuals around the world. So the question we ask in the book, I mean the sample in this individual reset that for me, a very fundamental question is linked to what economists in the jargon core is the resistant fact. So when our habits change as a night to become permanent tardies or wizard yet landed after the crisis passes. And I'll give you an example, several examples. When we went into look down, we are forced to work from home. We couldn't fly. We consumed in a very different manner. We bought food, but we didn't buy girls anymore or much less of it. So our habits were we're changing by necessity. And the question we asked in the book is, you know, how much of these are likely to become permanent because the consequences in terms of industries will be dramatic. If, if for example, we decide that working from home is a good thing. The impact this will have on cities, major cities, like the one in which you live Singapore, New York, Paris, London Shanga et cetera . And we , the answer it's dramatic. And it does a mistake we often make is to think that the trend has to be large and massive to be consequential. But in reality, the difference in life is always metal to margin . So if today we estimate that about 30% of people worldwide can work from home as a privilege of being able to work from home. So they are white goddess people. Well , it's just a fraction of Steve would decide to work from home permanently the impact of real estate prices on commercial real estate, of course, but also, you know , houses and fats would be, would be max. But if we decide that, you know, we are more consciously aware of the necessity to fly less or consume less meat, all things that were epitomized independently when the effect would be absolutely dramatic as well. It may be for example, that we decide to fly less . Because first of all, we realized that there is a very strong correlation between air pollution and, you know, the , the more air pollution there is more likely you are to catch, compete and to die from it as well. So this consciousness about environmental problems is one thing that when we realized that the choices we're making individually affect quality of the early breeze and our susceptibility to become ill, that has a very strong effect. So the last chapter is devoted to exploring these issues and to ponder what the effect on specific industries is, is likely to be, we don't know yet because it's still very earlier, very early on. We're still in the midst of it . And Danny and we've been in these from our seven months. And we might be in this for many more months, possibly until at the end of 2021. So the question is how will our habits change in a structural, permanent manner after the pandemic buses and how would it impact industries around the world?

Speaker 1: 33:22

Oh, and I want to add a small example to this. As I was talking to, one of our clients was running a fairly large business in the, in Asia Pacific. And he was sharing that the whole COVID-19 situation basically changed his mind in terms of working from the office side . He realized that by no means easy to mass , I guess, for the culture and for the interactions and because we are human, you know, we are social , you know, kind of social that we have that social Netherland in us. This is not going to be done with no interaction. I think that that's not possible, but his view was that he is probably going to need half the space in the office and make hot desks for everybody. Whereas now everybody has a desk and basically moved to a flexible arrangement where he's going to be maybe half the time at home, half the time from the office. So such measures. I also think, I mean, it says it's a sense, I don't know for sure. I don't, I don't know if anybody knows for sure, but I have a strong sense that it's going to be more and more prevalent. I even tried it on my LinkedIn at some point. And I just, I was curious to see what people would respond and, and there were quite a lot of responses. I think there were like 2000 people that voted them out of the options, right? Five days from home, four days from home, one from the office. And so on, right up to five days from the office , uh , pre , uh , I think 80% of the people referred from three days at home to , to the office four days at home to the office or on all from home and not at the office. So there's a clear trend and preference towards that. Yeah. Which indeed, I mean, I think there's even companies in the tech side that , that I think Twitter, for example, pretty much of what the permanent option to work from home forever.

Speaker 2: 35:03

Yup , absolutely. Yup .

Speaker 1: 35:06

Facebook as well. So I just want to end with one focus . I do think that you also mentioned in the book and this has been an a, is not one, I don't think it's often enough talked about. And two, it's a big item or on this individual research agenda, which is the how to call it mental health. And also COVID-19 did the, obviously because of the insecurities uncertainties changes in deal. The , I think it's also leading to an acceleration of, you know, anxiety or mental problems or mental that people have both at work at home and so on. And so what's, what's your view also on , on that , because that's a pretty big topic and I think a topic that we need to be talking more about.

Speaker 2: 35:47

Absolutely. Um, well , it's a big effort in the room , uh , mental health and the issues of mental health at work and in particular , um, we, we, you know , we serve in the book something which is not totally obvious, but when we wrote it in, in June, it was maybe less apparent, but there is an explosion of mental health issues , um, related to COVID-19, you know , because people were forced to isolate for four weeks because there is so much anxiety about the future. You know, so many people are anxious about the jobs that are the financial situation. So all of these contribute to a disability, mental health issues. And on top of that, you know , very simple observation from related to working from home new habits is that in fact, it seems to lead to more burnout situations because people work from home unable to differentiate the working lives from the personal lives. Even those are many positive aspects, you know, less commuting, more time with family, et cetera. So there's a very simple point we make is that there is an explosion of mental health problems , um, and which is now documented in a rigorous manner into U S I think it's a plus 58% of cases of mental high school. They could lead similar numbers in many countries around the world. And so what do we do about them? You know , there was an explosion of websites and apps giving you advice on how to find, you know, become a resilient and how to do , to find more inner peace in front of all exist . In my particular case, since this is what the business, it's a Muncie barometer under somebody of mines have been recommending for four years, we did keep on outside . And one of the interesting aspects of COVID is that it has reignited the interest from nature. And in fact, nature being outside, being as a white or even being in a park like in Singapore is an antidote to the ELs , is there is a tremendous amount of academic literature showing that being in nature and outside and in nature, you know , among trees, for example, benefits our physical and mental wellbeing, but also our cognitive capabilities. So what do we do about this? What, in my particular case, what the reason I'm based in Germany is precisely this one, you know, we think our clients outside, we take them for a hike. We do board meetings, EXCOM meetings in the mountains, hiking wild country skiing while climbing sometimes, and being outside has a soothing effect. We've known that for, for thousands of years, and now we understand why it's it benefits our mental and physical wellbeing. That's

Speaker 1: 38:36

That's for sure. And I just want to end one on one. Uh , one example to that that I think might help some of our deans as well, that I liked from another client that on this topic. And I do believe personally that it helps a lot. They organize with the staff open sharing session, where they actually encouraged the C level of the company to share some of their struggles and anxieties. And, you know , basically in very simple ways, be human, right , cut the crap. I mean, part of equity , we are , we are a little bit, unfortunately with this age of social media, we are kind of portrayed the life a perfect life, or, or we could try to portray it another straight to portrayed . And then we kind of failed to, to realize that that's, that's, you know, you only post the good stuff on your social media. You don't hardly ever post when you're feeling down and , and that's kind of wrong because it paints the picture that everybody's kind of ordered all the time happy, which isn't the case life is ups and lives is down . So I think we need to, you know, we need to have more of this open discussions and conversations as well, cause it helps. So for military has been a fantastic sharing session. I really enjoyed it. And thanks for your, for your time to be with you. And I want to, I, I just want to add my 2 cents on the, on the book to our audience that basically I started reading it on, on Saturday and I couldn't let it go. So it's a, it's an easy read, but at the same time, it's a very comprehensive read and it gives a very good overview of many different angles . I would say I was actually sharing material before we recorded the podcast. That was time personally focused very much on the business front to be able to think from , uh , from all the five aspects that , uh, that , uh , the book touches on is extremely useful and paint a complete picture. So I would recommend everybody to have a read and teary once again, much, much appreciated your, your presence with us today.

Speaker 2: 40:38

When I do thank you so much for having me, it was a great pleasure.

Speaker 1: 40:41

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