GFC an opportunity to build real value

‘SKINT! Making Do in the Great Depression’ is an exhibition currently showing in Australia and it promises to bring clarity to why your grandmother still saves old bits of soap, reuses unmarked postage stamps and never lets food go to waste.

Reading its review made me think about whether, in the business world, we’ve learned any lessons from the recent (and still current to many) global meltdown and recession-like times. Did companies allow themselves to stare into the eye of the storm and understand what actions can strengthen their business should another front roll in?

While the US economy remains in a fragile state, damage control escalates in Europe and growth concerns simmer around our knight in shining armour, China, the tutorial may still not have concluded; but what new-found wisdom can we claim while it’s all still fresh in the mind of Australians? Here are some suggestions.

Retrenching insensitively ravages morale

Retrenchments have the potential to destroy workplace culture, unless they are handled with care, sensitivity and an obvious, transparent rationale. Remaining employees will judge the way their former colleagues are treated when they are retrenched, and in the age of technology and online business/social networking, bad news has never travelled faster. How did you protect your future employer brand during redundancy programs? Are completion conversations necessary with your remaining team to allow them to air their grievances?

Nurturing and developing key talent during hard times can actually increase market share

How long did the bad times last? Agreed, it’s not all roses again just yet, but if you were an organisation that successfully retained (and even developed) your nucleus of talent, are your customers showing their approval by making you busy again? Your key talent would have increased your future market share in the bad times, through doing all the right things in times that more desperate and less client-serving avenues would have been tempting.

Bad times strengthen your core values

Jim Collins, in one of his famous articles, ‘Building your Company Vision’, describes real core values as being so strong that if you walked away from your current role and started your own business in a completely different industry, these core values would follow you. Bad times are a great test of the authenticity of your values.

Recessionary times expose poor performers

In great times ‘C players’ can look, from a distance (which is as close as a manager gets to staff when operational business demands are hectic) like B or even A players. Then, when it gets tough, C players are exposed quite quickly. What a great time to identity training needs to up-skill; or, if the decision is that their weakness is irreparable, a great market opportunity to replace them with B or A players. Did you raise your talent benchmark in this period? Did you review your talent acquisitions strategy if the downturn exposed the weakness of your recruiting choices?

The best of decisions are made in the worst of times

Look at some of the best decisions you made around doing more with less, in the midst of the economical mire. Why did you wait for a hard time to take these decisions? Are they decisions that will drive your company forward, regardless of the economical environment at play?

Hard times expose your survival culture

What was your team capable of when the chips were down? What was your organisations biological response to the ‘fight or flight or freeze’ instinct? Who in your team had particular stomach for the battle? Who didn’t? As hard as these conversations are to have, it is vital that leaders know which category their team members fall into. Just because someone chose the flight response, it may not equate to a terminal offence; it’s just a guide to leading them differently to get the best out of them.

Companies are only as strong as their people, the right people. All the lessons from the GFC will allow you to acquire, lead, retain, motivate and develop your greatest asset with even more proficiency and mastery, as long as you are willing to take a hard look at what you and your team did well or otherwise during the heat of the battle. If you have emerged a winner; look at why. If you lost, ensure you don’t lose the lesson.