Preparation

"It is better to be prepared for an opportunity and not have one than to have an opportunity and not be prepared" (Whitney Moore Young Jr.). As the economy shifts under us, moving from one phase to the next, some preparation for what might be ahead will promote our chances of capturing the opportunities that will be there for the taking.

We may be sure that opportunities will exist, whatever the circumstances.

If house prices continue to fall there will be bargains available to those willing and able to take advantage of them.

If oil prices continue to rise then oil reserves, previously uneconomic, will become worth drilling and refining.

If food shortages spread, then more land will be brought into cultivation, farmers will prosper and agricultural land values will increase.

It’s an open secret: in good time and in bad opportunity consists of looking at the same thing as everyone else and thinking something different. Preparation consists of dreaming what might be and devising contingencies to deal with that situation should it arise.

Most situations will not actually occur. Those that do will not be exactly as we planned. Nevertheless, the fact that we have been thinking ahead makes us better prepared, sooner than those that have just waited to see what turns up before they react, if they ever do.

In business we often find ourselves wrestling with current demands and misadventures. Our days are spent fire fighting, leaving no time to worry about tomorrow. However, this approach, while apparently sensible and seductive, will mean we continue to fight those fires day after day. Being busy will be no protection when the roof caves in.

With the future in mind it is often easier to spot opportunities as they arise. Without that mental preparation the chance goes unremarked. We are familiar with this phenomenon from our own experience. Having bought a new car we immediately notice how many other similar cars there are on the road. Before making the purchase we were totally unaware.

By way of illustration:

Sarah has just left the house after a blazing row with her husband. She was taking a quiet walk to calm down when she notices an unusual funeral procession coming along the road towards her. At the front is a large black hearse and 20 yards behind this is a second black hearse. A solitary woman is walking behind the second hearse with a large, well-groomed Rottweiler dog on a lead. Behind the woman are 50 other women walking single file.

Sarah is very curious and goes over to the woman with the dog and says, “I’m sorry about your loss.”

“Thank you,” says the woman, “you’re very kind.”

“I know it’s a bad time to ask,” says Sarah, “but whose funeral is this?”

“It’s my husband's funeral,” replies the woman.

“So what happened to him?” asks Sarah.

The woman replies, “My dog attacked and killed him.”

“And who is in the second hearse?” asks Sarah.

The woman answers, “My mother-in-law. She was trying to help my husband when the dog turned on her.”

A poignant and thoughtful moment of silence passes between the two women.

“Can I borrow the dog?” asks Sarah.

“Go to the back of the line,” replies the woman.

Mining Facts and Missing the Point

Despite appearances bad decisions are rarely made because people don’t have all the facts. In the political sphere the Treasury will have been fully aware of the impact on taxpayers of abandoning the 10% tax band. The Treasury may even have alerted Ministers. Nevertheless, although the facts were noted, plainly they were not given sufficient weight.

In the run-up to the present ‘Credit Crunch’ the financial institutions were fully aware of what they were doing and, one hopes, so were the regulators. But merely knowing the facts proved insufficient. Clearly, they did not understand the facts and the whole unstable structure was allowed to plough on into the crash barriers.

The Burmese Government will be well informed about the consequences of Cyclone Nargis and how badly their population has been affected. However, here facts are equally useless because they are being ignored.

Business is subject to the same purblindness when it comes to facts. Too often when plans go awry Governments call for Royal Commissions or Parliamentary Committees; business calls for internal audits or additional research. More facts will not help them regain the perspective they have lost.

When facts have failed to register, the continued pursuit of yet more facts painfully echoes Dickens’ Thomas Gradgrind in ‘Hard Times’. Gradgrind worships facts and figures. He puts his faith in abstract theories rather than direct observation of real people and real needs. The asymmetrical approach to human life of early industrial England, the denial of some of the basic needs of human beings, is being repeated in what some are pleased to call our post-industrial age. The structure of the economy may have changed. Too many of the attitudes live on. The cost in human happiness is great.

In Dickens’ Coketown, the needs of the factories dominate everything else. The factory hands work long hours in oppressive conditions, and they live in cramped houses. Their lives are monotonous; every day is exactly like every other day, just as all the houses and streets look alike. In Coketown, there is a strict uniformity in everything. The workers have little time off to relax and enjoy themselves. Does that sound familiar?

Employees and those running their own businesses will recognise the close parallels. Today we still struggle with long hours, astronomic housing costs, poor diets and an existence where evenings and weekends are nothing more than the exercise yard of our own imprisonment.

Each business, each day, has the opportunity to step back and take a clear-eyed view of the workplace we have built for ourselves. If it is not as we would wish it, then we can change. If you think it isn’t as easy as that then you will be setting yourself up to fail as a self-fulfilling outcome. Give real change a try. Take action. You may surprise yourself.

Why Me?

Once upon a distant time in the here and now a seeker journeyed through the furthest regions of the earth to find a teacher rumoured to know the secrets to happiness, success, and well-being. When the seeker arrived at the teacher's mountain-top retreat, he eagerly awaited his audience with the reclusive teacher. Finally, his moment came.

"Why have you come?" the teacher asked.

The seeker proceeded to list problem after problem he was facing in his life. After listening patiently, the teacher sighed.

"I am afraid I cannot help you with your problems."

"Why not?" asked the puzzled and disappointed seeker.

"Because the gods have decreed that we all carry fifty-one problems with us at all times. Even if I could help you solve the problems you tell me of, they would only be replaced with fifty-one more."

The teacher paused to allow the full significance of the idea to sink in.

"I may, however," the teacher continued, "be able to help you with your 52nd problem."

"What's that?" asked the seeker.

"Your 52nd problem," replied the teacher, "Is that you think you should not have the first 51 problems."

The 52nd problem is not confined to our fabled seeker. I think most people in business would welcome fewer problems. Many would go further and wish there were no problems. Wouldn’t that be beautiful?

Probably not: man is a solution seeking animal and when problems become too few, or of insufficient size, then he (or she) will manufacture some challenge to fill the vacuum. If not, then the market will do it for him. If your sector was problem-free and life truly was a cushy number, then other firms would push their way in seeking this Sylvania for themselves. The problems would multiply and the natural balance would be restored.

Problems are essentially opportunities in disguise. How well you cope with them will determine how well you do in business and in life. Problems are not something from which we should flee. Rather they are things we should embrace.

A leader faced with an almighty challenge is afforded reward and recognition when that challenge is eventually overcome. A leader handed an easy life reaps no honour; success is expected. For him there is only the yawning chasm represented by muffing an easy shot and failing to capture what everyone else saw as a gift.

It is an entirely different proposition to have a sufficiency of problems, yet be tempted into making even more for yourself. This is particularly attractive when the problems you do have are chronic and familiar. In such circumstances either the problem fades into the background and is hardly noticed, or there is seen to be little kudos in dealing it. If collecting cash has always taken 90 days at your firm there may be little enthusiasm for reducing it to 30 days. There may even be some opposition to disturbing the status quo and ‘upsetting’ certain clients.

Whatever you circumstances where problems are concerned – too few, enough, or too many – the basic approach is the same: rather than engaging in the self-pity of “Why me?” pick the one problem whose solution, or easement, would have the biggest impact on your business. When that one is solved, or temporarily stalled, work on the problem with the next biggest impact. Have no more than six problems, ranked in order of impact, on your list at any one time.

This is not a new idea. It was first put into practice by Charles Schwab, President of Bethlehem Steel in the 1900’s. The idea is simple, but don’t let that deceive you. There are still plenty of opportunities for distractions. The real achievement is in recognising the potential diversions and resolutely refusing to get sidetracked.