Surviving Tough Times

On Tuesday, November 27, 2001 USA Today had an interesting juxtapositioning of articles.  On the front page of the business section was an article with the headline, “Recession’s nearly over, many experts predict”.  On the fifteenth page of the front section they had an article, “In recession, face brutal facts, thrive”.

We’ve all been reading various predictions as to how long, how deep, how soon the recession will be over.  So let me dwell on the second article because it is much more informative as to things that we can do to come through the recession whenever it may be over. 

Basically this article talked about Admiral Stockdale, the highest ranking US Military Officer in the Hanoi Prison Camp during the Vietnam War.  The author asked Stockdale how he had survived.  His response, “I never lost faith in the end of the story”.  When asked which ones didn’t make it out, he quickly responded “the optimists”.  Basically the optimists would set a specific day by which they were going to be out such as Christmas and then they were going to be out by Easter, etc.  But finally they died of a broken heart.  Stockdale went on to say that, “you must never confuse faith that you will prevail in the end . . . with the need for discipline to confront the most brutal facts of your current reality whatever they may be.”

Collins, the author of Good to Great operates a management research laboratory in Boulder , Colorado .  He used these findings to try to determine why some companies rise from such difficulty, such as a recession, while others emerge from the exact same difficulties weakened.  

His conclusions were that instead of using this recession as an opportunity to fundamentally rethink their business and rebuild a culture of discipline, some will simply restructure, lay off a bunch of people and liquidate their cultural equity.  Mediocre leaders will hold out false hopes for a quick fix only to watch these hopes be swept away by events.  Their companies will begin to die of a broken heart.

Meanwhile those who retain unwavering faith that they will find a way to prevail in the end but who also retain the discipline to confront the most brutal facts of reality, will find this an ideal time to build and reinforce greatness.  I agree!

Collins uses Fannie Mae as an example of a company that confronted difficulties and emerged victorious.  They created a entire new business model based on the answers to the following questions:

1. What can we potentially do better than any other company in the world?
2. What can best drive our economic engine?
3. What best ignites the passions of our people

They also stopped doing a lot of stupid things.