This is a guest post by Nicholas Bate, author of the new book Beat the Recession: A Blueprint for Business Survival. He is author, designer and facilitator for the ground-breaking ‘Personal Excellence’ seminar, a program used as the basis for cultural change in many organizations, in addition to many pioneering development concepts in leadership, team-building and sales training. Nicholas Bate is passionate about supporting people to ensure they realise and release their true and full potential.
For more information on Nicholas Bate, his books, and his seminar, be sure to visit his blog.
The other day I spoke in Zurich on Beating the Recession. As always, I tend to emphasize there are three possible routes:
- Accept that the recession has simply highlighted what was inevitable and get out and put your resources, time, energy and people into something else. Mind-blowingly awful to execute short-term, but the only long-term viable option. Throwing money at it is well, generally, money down the drain.
- Diversify. Spot what the markets are doing and provide. This could help you implement 1, above.
- Get better at what you do. If you know your model is valid, then get better at what you do. And this can work well with 2, above.
To illustrate the power of 3: Get Better, I’ve created a simple simulation whereby delegates get a short period to run a company ‘in recession’ and then apply various factors and notice the immediate turn-around. These factors are rarely common practice. For the group I spoke to, I wrapped them up into what I called the Zurich Mantra:
Z: Zen-like clarity of purpose and process. In many organizations and for individuals, purpose has become vague and processes have got worn. Improve both, you improve results.
U: Unstoppable desire to improve. Kaizen or never ending constant improvement. If you want things to be better, you need to better. Good is no longer good enough. Raise standards and results will improve.
R: Review and rehearse. In business we do not spend enough time doing either. Once we do, results improve.
I: I own the problem. Leadership is a mindset not a job title. Make It happen; never walk by a quality issue.
C: Chain-react teach this stuff. I encourage each delegate to go and quality teach these ideas to just two people. And each of these two, to quality teach two more people. Soon everybody has got it. That improves results.
H: because HOPE in a recession is not strategy.
Author: Jeremy Vohwinkle
My name is Jeremy Vohwinkle, and I’ve spent a number of years working in the finance industry providing financial advice to regular investors and those participating in employer-sponsored retirement plans.
