How Covid has forced us to challenge ourselves

I believe constructive challenge is one of the most important virtues of learning and self development and also one of the least practised. We are, after all, creatures of habit and it’s much easier to do today the same thing that we did yesterday - it takes less effort, causes less anxiety and carries a lower risk. Then sometimes, an event comes along which forces us from our comfort zone and into something else… enter Covid.

For years I’ve been complaining to various law firms and banks about their insistence on ‘wet ink’ signatures. Despite the Electronics Communications Act of 2000 (yes, that’s twenty years ago!) which made contracts made and sent via digital means as legally binding as paper ones, there has been a reluctance, if not a resistance by law firms and banks to accept them. The main argument I’ve heard is ‘but why wouldn’t you get a paper copy?’ Well I could give you a few reasons: it’s quicker and more convenient, is more secure, they are harder to lose, you can search for them more easily and you don’t need to pay to put them into a storage vault. But they are not enough it seems to push for progress for two decades.

In March 2020 we completed an investment deal with LDC and as is not unusual one of the many (paper) forms was lost or forgotten about during the process [see reasons for not using paper above]. Two weeks later Covid happened and all of the lawyers were forced to work from home without access to their office and the paper copies it contained. This document needed no less than five different people to sign it, which caused more logistical issues - having to make it’s way by post to as many different addresses. And then out of nowhere, a DocuSign version appeared in my inbox. Two clicks and it was signed, then sent automatically to the next signatory.

Progress then, comes not through choice but necessity.

The Government has had similar eureka moments. Whilst stamp duty on houses (SDLT) is a fairly automated affair, duty on company shares (SDRT) is still handled by the Stamp Office using ink and metal dies of various denominations. If you stamp duty is for £1700, you’ll get one £1000 stamp, a £500 stamp, and two £100 stamps. I couldn’t quite believe the process until I sold my first shares in a business and had the form returned to be duly embossed with an orange £20 stamp. When Covid forced the Stamp Office to work remotely (I assume without access to their set of stamps) they moved to an electronic method which worked so well (again, I assume this wasn’t hard given the physical stamping process dates from 1694) that at the time of writing they are considering not turning back.

Whilst it would be easy to congratulate these as great examples of companies embracing change in the face of adversity, we might be better to ask the question: What was stopping these positive changes from happening before Covid? The answer is mostly nothing, or if you want to put some more substance on that it’s likely to be either complacency (a lack of motivation to change) or a mind-set which is stuck in the past and closed to new ideas. In both situations though, there were significant benefits and so significant motivation to change - so either no one asked the question of “Why don’t we do this a better way?” or no one allowed their mind to even consider the suggestion as serious.

Which leaves me to ask you, what else is there that could be changed for the better? And what are you waiting for to be able to do it?

Unfortunately three of our four local Chinese takeaways still haven’t got the message. Not only do they not support online ordering, but they don’t even have a menu (or photo of the physical menu) online!