Spain was OK to visit and then suddenly it would cost you 14 days of quarantine on your return. In April, Barclays boss Jes Staley said that big city offices “may be a thing of the past” – now he is casting doubt on this, saying “we also have a responsibility to places like Canary Wharf, like Manchester, like Glasgow.”

Even though it is obvious that we are living on a knife edge and can easily go back over the tipping point and back into more stringent lockdown measures, the Government plans to encourage more people to return to their old workplaces from next month amid the hope that there will be a “significant return to normality by Christmas”. It was in this week of 1914 that the First World War started – and everyone thought then that it would be over by Christmas.

While we might think we are in the early stages of Recover and beyond the Cross over point (when the economic cost to the country outweighs the human toll), this could easily be reversed with concerns being voiced about, and perhaps early signs of, a ‘second wave’ in Europe. Those of us in FM must continue to maintain the clarity of focus and speed of reaction that comes as part of the Stop and Think! methodology.

The Stop and Think! team have done the thinking and produced the tools and methodologies to help

• OVOR and Space Segmentation allow us to determine the most beneficial direction of travel
• Controlled Resumption of Service, Intelligent Service Suppression, Intelligent Maintenance Reduction, and Quick Source get the right service in place at the right time and drive value

A tidal wave of change has swept over us and we risk drowning if we can’t get ahead of it. The next Stop and Think! webinar addresses Change Management and how we can manage the changes, rather than let the changes manage us.

Once in front of the wave we can surf down it, using its power to propel us forward while we control our own direction – but constantly being aware of the consequences should we lose our balance.