Extraordinary when we have all watched for almost a decade, companies gorge themselves on ill gotten profits based on greed & selfishness as customer service sank to historic lows let alone the committed development of executive talent.
Who could have imagined the apocalyptic Gordon Gekko would manifest himself in so many companies around the world.
So, is this the end?
The answer is really very simple.
No! It is NOT the end, it is merely a change in the cycle or, (as more learned folk would say) a change in the seasons of business that has been exacerbated by the actions of bad planning, poor people development & cutting corners.
As we head into an economic winter, following a very short (or no) Fall, the reality is that spring will come around & then Summer again.
Whilst the forecast is for a particularly long economic winter this time, the smart operators will learn from events to get their business in order.
It is time to review the workforce, identify the key current & future leaders & get the development plans together.
As equally critical, get the Business Plan into perspective, identifying current reality, assess the war chest & map out the coming spring.
The negatives we hear, see & experience every day (especially today) fail to identify the fact that the world works in seasons, has basic laws that you cannot escape & will always react to opportunity or penalty that sees progress - a fact!
What has not changed is the reason for all this progress - people!
The human character is (& always will be) unique in that it has the ability to dream, to visualise & manifest into reality anything it wants.
It has been said "We sow our thoughts and we reap our actions. We sow our actions and we reap our habits. We sow our habits and we reap our character. We sow our character and we reap our destiny."
Understand this & you can understand what caused this current & temporary relapse in global development.
Said another way "We understand what we want to do & develop our business plan. We put our business plan into action by finding the best people we can. We develop, train & nurture our people who will define the company. We develop, train & nurture our company to get what we want!"
Believe me. Business (as in life) is as simple as that.
I love this season as it is what I was trained to do - building & fixing corporations most of my working life.
