Take action, be positive

Running into the Recession

It must be the influence of the recent Olympics.  Politicians have helped us not just walk, but sprint, straight into this official Recession. 

As if the Economy were not going through a tough enough time in early 2007 with Northern Rock, the Credit Crunch and the Chancellor's dire outpourings on the poorest performance of the Economy for 60 years is enough to make the average businessman or manager  pull her or his hair out. 

'Learned Hopelessness'

It was Professor Martin Seligman who coined the phrase 'learned helplessness' when positive people revert to pessimism as a typical habitual behaviour.  It is bad enough seeing the stock market fall, the pound plummet and with ‘new hires’ declining to make the most optimistic business people to revise their assumptions, haul down the shutters, be disinclined to invest in new ventures, cut costs, including people and settle down waiting patiently to ride out this cycle.

Learned Optimism & Contrarian Economics

Things don't change by themselves.  The entrepreneurial spark has to emerge and that is founded in personal attitude.  It is also found in the market.  Smart investors don’t follow the herd.  When stock prices start tumbling it is too late to follow suit – you do and lose the lot. 

In a bear market you buy only those stocks you know have resilience to mature and flourish.  As you work through this with your investment it is time to consider what to do about your business.  As a manager you have to demonstrate that you are using assets to best effect.

Now is precisely the right time to invest in your people.  It means investing in those things that add value for your business.  It is definitely not training for trainings sake.  It is a calculated ability to improve the capability of your business to deliver extra capacity for growth and adding value to your customers.

It is at times like this when all others are losing confidence – now is the time to act in these areas:

• Explore novel ways to add to the value stream for your clients and consumers, thereby reinforcing your competitive edge
• To establish firm customer retention teams to address the reasons why customers have migrated to other providers
• Develop a ‘no fear’ incentivised sales strategy and culture based on referrals
• Train staff in core competencies that will cause improvement in service excellence
• Analyse poorly performing customer facing processes
• Develop the use of problem solving to rectify the 20% of internal problems that create 80% impact on your performance
• Set up quality improvement teams and administer an incentivised suggestions scheme
• Identify rework and redesign processes around customer wants
• Assess and improve communications
• Manage poor performers out of the business and develop talent

Recession Proof Your Business

Overall, we have to take a positive attitude and focus on what we can do to avoid the negativity of recession thinking.  Turn off the TV news, forget the Newspaper, avoid people who are doomsayers and fill your day with preventing problems arising and building a strong results oriented culture.