“Hopes and Alibis”
A couple of weeks back, the top 20 world nations, economically-speaking, met to sort out the problems that are still affecting the world’s top economies in the wake of what we are told has been the worst financial crisis for 50 years. Just a few weeks on, few of us are likely to remember what the meeting agreed, decided, or achieved.
Not so long ago, we heard about two other responses to the financial crisis at a more mundane but more connectable level.
The first was the news of an early morning attack on the home of former Royal Bank of Scotland boss, Sir Fred Goodwin, in which missiles were thrown at his house and Mercedes car.
The other piece of news was the result of a survey into the business crisis by the UK Chartered Management Institute.
In the survey, 1118 senior managers were asked how they were responding to the downturn. To the surprise of many, a majority of respondents said they were refusing to let the gloomy news dampen their enthusiasm. Unlike the recession of the 1990’s, in which most businesses reacted by cutting costs, today’s business leaders said they remained positive.
And they are doing this by concentrating on two particular areas.
The first is an increase in training for their core staff. The second is a focus on the twin skills of management and leadership to see them through.
In a choice of attacking bankers or investing in the people in your business, it’s not hard to see which route makes most sense.
For just as uncertainty, fear and a lack of self-belief led us into this situation, so positivity, confidence, and self-belief will lead us out.
I hope at future world summits, the world leaders will follow the lead of those UK managers who are enthusiastically investing in their people.
I hope too that they will pause to remember the words of the greatest business enthusiast the world has ever seen, car maker Henry Ford, who said: “You can do anything if you have enthusiasm. It is the yeast that makes our hopes rise to the stars. With it, there is accomplishment. Without it, there are only alibis.”
A couple of weeks back, the top 20 world nations, economically-speaking, met to sort out the problems that are still affecting the world’s top economies in the wake of what we are told has been the worst financial crisis for 50 years.
Just a few weeks on, few of us are likely to remember what the meeting agreed, decided, or achieved.
Not so long ago, we heard about two other responses to the financial crisis at a more mundane but more connectable level.
The first was the news of an early morning attack on the home of former Royal Bank of Scotland boss, Sir Fred Goodwin, in which missiles were thrown at his house and Mercedes car.
The other piece of news was the result of a survey into the business crisis by the UK Chartered Management Institute.
In the survey, 1118 senior managers were asked how they were responding to the downturn. To the surprise of many, a majority of respondents said they were refusing to let the gloomy news dampen their enthusiasm. Unlike the recession of the 1990’s, in which most businesses reacted by cutting costs, today’s business leaders said they remained positive.
And they are doing this by concentrating on two particular areas.
The first is an increase in training for their core staff. The second is a focus on the twin skills of management and leadership to see them through.
In a choice of attacking bankers or investing in the people in your business, it’s not hard to see which route makes most sense.
For just as uncertainty, fear and a lack of self-belief led us into this situation, so positivity, confidence, and self-belief will lead us out.
I hope at future world summits, the world leaders will follow the lead of those UK managers who are enthusiastically investing in their people.
I hope too that they will pause to remember the words of the greatest business enthusiast the world has ever seen, car maker Henry Ford, who said: “You can do anything if you have enthusiasm. It is the yeast that makes our hopes rise to the stars. With it, there is accomplishment. Without it, there are only alibis.”
