Monday 28th April was an interesting day! Around 11.30am local time (where I am in Portugal), the power in our home cut out; this is not entirely unusual especially as we have work being completed on a large retail unit in our street. However, after a few minutes it didn’t come back. Mmm this is a bit weird. I made an early (cold) lunch and deferred my post lunch coffee, worked off my laptop battery and my phone hotspot. My phone was at 34% power – my charger had been plugged in beside me all morning and I hadn’t actually placed the phone in it. Confident that wouldn’t be a critical part of my day I worked ahead, albeit with a weaker hotspot signal.
Around 1.30pm there was still no power. I went for a quick walk down the street and quickly worked out something bigger was at play. All of Spain and Portugal were out of power? There was a widespread apagão (blackout). Very strange. There was talk on the street varying from malicious cyber attacks that were taking over the banking system to a possible accident that had caused physical damage to the network. What was clear was nothing was working anywhere and we were all in it together.
Around 2 hours later the phone networks went down meaning we were cut off completely from any source of contact and, more importantly, news on what was happening. I still hadn’t had that coffee and my phone was now at 6%. My wife was panicking as her phone had dropped below 80% for the first time in its history. I was asked why mine was so low…
At this stage I was powerless from a work perspective. I could only work off a battery on my laptop that was around 40%, but which could not access anything on the cloud storage we use. I couldn’t contact staff by slack, mail or phone.
What followed was… actually quite calm. Here’s the thing: I knew nothing would truly fall apart. At Nuvem9 we had never prepared for an event like this, but actually in a way we had. This was an overall statement of the combination of the power of preparation, trust, right clients and clear systems. It was proof that the work we do before a crisis matters more than what we do during it, because sometimes, you can’t do anything during it.
The Lessons
Cloud based IS still the most important thing
This week reminded me that whilst the cloud needs actual power and signal, because it is accessible, my team could carry the torch even when I was unplugged. My slack, gmail, work documents could all be viewed and covered while I was physically unable to do so. Our ethos of shared info for team and clients meant no-one was dependent on local files I couldn’t send.
Team empowerment beats micro management
It was a sudden and abrupt departure from our comms, but I felt I didn’t need to check in. Everyone knew their priorities, had the info to do their tasks and ran with it. By building a business that depends on you for every single function, task, sign-off and decision you are building a trap not a Company. Instead, by building on empowerment, accountability and results driven performance assessment, you can build a business that can roll with any eventuality.
Busy-ness is not effectiveness
When your ability to DO is removed and against your will, it is a very insightful experience. The outage forced a pause and a review of what is actually just noise in our work. In that pause it was an opportunity to get some real insights into normal day to week to monthly operations. This was a time to review and tweak and it has given me ultimately more value than the actual planned Monday afternoon would have.
Final Thoughts
The blackouts make me grateful: for preparation, for good people, and for the return of electricity (and coffee). They’re also a great reminder that we are only ever one blown fuse away from chaos… or calm, depending on how we’ve set things up.
So, whether it’s a power cut or a curveball from the economy, plan for the worst and relax when it doesn’t happen.
And to answer some of these questions I have been asked since:
- Yes, we did have to save things from the freezer – we focussed on the ice and thought it best saved when mixed with wine with a side of cheese
- Yes, my wife did panic more than me although she varied from assuming it was a global apocalypse through to what order she would have to cook the frozen food in when power resumed, so there was certainly varying scale to the panic during the day
- Yes, we did play board games and I got my proverbial butt kicked in Scrabble when Mrs McG produced a full tile word on a triple letter score
- Yes, my evening meal did consist of crisps
- Yes, I did try and finally fix that cupboard in the kitchen and, yes, it is now even harder to open
- Yes, I did my full repertoire of Dad jokes to keep spirits up
Author: Niall McGinnity, CEO @ Nuvem9
Main Image Credit: Photo by Zac Cain
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