the strategy circle

Category: Lockdown

  • Witnessing the grief of our greatest value creators

    Witnessing the grief of our greatest value creators

    Witness grief of greatest value creators

    Over the last seven weeks I have been witnessing my clients and peers going through an impossible process. Most of the business owners I work with have taken years to develop teams and to grow their business with incredibly hard work. Building value in the world is not for sissies and it takes a great deal of courage. It is only for the lion hearted.

    I have been watching these brave, committed people struggling with the incredible responsibility of being employers in the current situation. They have had to pay people not knowing if or when the money from TERS or UIF would come. They have had sleepless nights and panic attacks worrying about their staff and how they were going to make it all work.

    Many of these businesses survived the 2008 crash, built themselves and their teams up again, only to deal with the reality of having their businesses taken from them at this time. I have listened to people who in the past have been the first to talk about opportunity and how South Africa is the place to be. People who were loyal and committed to being here, creating jobs and making a life for themselves and others.

    In the last two weeks I have watched a number of these brave people break down under the financial pressure of having to pay staff that are not working and retrench people they were committed to because they can no longer hold out. The runway is gone. I have seen their desperate attempts to hold it together fail in the face of decisions made that they have no control over. I have been witnessing this and I am sad beyond words for them, for the staff they had to let go and for the lives that get shattered in this way.

    Acknowledge the grief and distress

    I would like to acknowledge publicly how much we owe these people. How much of our economy is created and generated by people who want to make things, do things and build businesses. I have always been in awe of the possibility-thinking and creative production that these small business owners represent for me. They are my favourite people and I have dedicated myself to serving them. I am ashes. I am ashes witnessing what they are having to do. Having to decide who they can continue to pay and who they can’t, knowing that those people that they are putting on short time, or retrenching are unlikely to find jobs anytime soon. Sitting and crying with employees who understand and are broken anyway, sitting through the abuse of those who don’t understand and are angry with them, like it’s their fault. Sitting in the middle of the night trying to figure out how to change, pivot and re arrange the business so that it will survive and all the livelihoods with it.

    These traumatised people are our economic engine room. These people who make things happen are demoralised in ways I have never seen before in twenty years of working with entrepreneurs. Some are questioning their commitment to a government that is throwing them under the bus. I have heard people say that they would never have thought that they would get to place of not wanting to build their businesses here, where there seems to be so little respect at the decision making level regarding what it takes to build value, products, incomes streams and jobs.

    People are giving up

    “…for this first time ever, I am seriously considering packing it all in and going to Canada/Spain/ anywhere else to build all over again. I want to take what is left after this train smash and put it somewhere safe, where it can’t be broken by other people’s dithering.”

    Something else I am hearing a lot is “I don’t ever want to be responsible for employing people again. I don’t ever want to have the stress and responsibility again. I’m done. I’m closing my business and I’m going to freelance.” This from people who have worked and hustled and been astoundingly resourceful to keep their business going, do what it takes and keep trucking. They don’t want to anymore. Where does that leave our economy?

    Those of us who are in the business of supporting entrepreneurs have been incredibly busy in the last 8 weeks helping people strategize, pivot, think through how they can best use their assets and abilities to survive this time, find a new market, re-organise their processes to be leaner etc. This has all happened and many of these businesses in many ways had time to reset, sort out legacy issues and find smarter ways of doing things. But going into the third month of lock down, with unclear reasoning and a government that seems to have stalled at a crucial juncture, and who possibly are not understanding that the patient may die from the medicine, many are unraveling, their last chances disappearing into the confusion. Loss, and the grief of that loss is what I am witnessing.

    One client raged, saying “…how can a business with over a million rand in business on its books close down and I have to tell my 18 staff members that I cannot hold it together anymore, in spite of having work – which we are not allowed to do.”

    The fabric of small business in South Africa is tearing, possibly irreparably and I think that this is a disaster for our country, when the most innovative, energetic and productive elements of our society are being dismembered. Our best problem solvers and value creators are too traumatised and angry to care.

    Saving lives AND the economy

    I know there are reasons, I know there are realities. I know that the government is also dealing with impossible choices.  I just thought you should know how hard this is for business owners, who may not only lose their own livelihoods, but those of people they care for and feel responsible for – that is a double trauma that I don’t think is properly appreciated.

    It is simple to hit the brakes, but vastly more complex to move forward in a way which balances or acknowledges lives and the economy that supports those lives. Over the last decade, in amongst all the corruption and lack of capability, it has been entrepreneurs and business that have made huge contributions to keep the country afloat – creating value and then being taxed on that value.

    What I fear is that they will give up and leave. Give up and stop creating value beyond themselves.  That will be a terrible outcome for the people of this country. Please can those in decision making places take a moment to think about how this is going to be avoided, please.

  • Making business progress when work slows down

    Making business progress when work slows down

    Every business hits moments when normal work grinds to a halt – whether it’s system outages like WiFi or power cuts, waiting on approvals, seasonal slowdowns or unexpected disruptions. While these pauses can feel frustrating, they also offer something most business owners struggle to find: uninterrupted time to step back and work on the business, not just in it. Used well, these slower periods can become some of the most valuable strategy time you’ll get all year.

    1. Working on and not in the business

    I participate actively in several business networks, and I’ve noticed that time to work on the business instead of just in it seems to be the holy grail many of my entrepreneur peers are trying to find time to seek.

    Look at the Eisenhower Decision Matrix.

    Savvy business people know that finding the time to work in that “Important but not urgent” quadrant, what my team refers to as “Quadrant II time”, is essential if you don’t want to be stuck on that hamster wheel, repeating problems and going nowhere.

    Quadrant II is where we take time to zoom in and focus on careful in-depth analysis, or zoom out and take time to look at the big picture. It is where we take the time to plan, develop or improve systems, and build business relationships.

    However, the dog that barks the loudest tends to get the most attention, and so the “Urgent and important” tasks in Quadrant I tend to draw us away from that valuable Quadrant II time. The reason Quadrant I can be so seductive is that the work is exactly what it says on the label – urgent and important. If something is on fire, it must be put out.

    The problem is if you don’t spend time planning and building systems that prevent fire, those fires will just keep on happening, leaving you blackened and singed and choking for air on a regular basis.

    Also, it is possible to fall into the trap of overestimating the importance of certain tasks and pushing them into the “do” category, when in fact they should be in the “delegate” category.

    Business bible The E-Myth by Michael E. Gerber talks about, in a nutshell, how the majority of small businesses fail. They do so because Business Owner Bob fails to realise that – as the founder of new company Bob’s Widgets – his new job is not making widgets anymore, but to run a company that makes widgets.

    The Advanced E-Myth by the same author breaks down the disciplines of running a business into “The 7 centers of management attention”:

    If you are at a loss as to what planning to do, pick whichever of those you feel is your weakest area and start with that.

    Here is a handy worksheet from e-myth.com you can print out and refer to if you need it.

    2. Make your staff part of the business strategy process

    “That’s all fine for me,” you might be saying to yourself, “But what do I do with all those staff out there laughing raucously or spinning in their chairs?”

    I say take them with you into Quadrant II.

    A lack of employee engagement can drain the life out of a company, harming your ability to retain talent, and poisoning the well for those that stay, killing motivation and productivity.

    More than free snacks and even more than high pay, studies show that modern employees want to feel appreciated and included. They want to know where the company is going and to know that their and the company’s values align.

    Including your staff in strategic planning sessions means that they will feel respected and invested in the outcomes, and more likely to cooperate with implementing the changes uncovered during the process.

    Ever heard the saying “Culture eats strategy for breakfast” by Peter Drucker? It doesn’t mean what I originally thought it did; that culture is more powerful than strategy. It means that any attempt to carry out a strategy that isn’t accepted by the culture will be dead in its tracks.

    Make sure innovation and openness to new ideas is part of your culture by including staff in strategy workshops. Plan these for when you’re expecting slower than normal workdays.

    No names mentioned but I have heard other employers say things to the tune of, “There is no point including these idiots in strategy workshops – they have nothing to add.”

    Before we continue, I’d like to say the assumption is likely wrong. The key thing about diversity – and we are all diverse from each other in some way – is that it means a wider variety of experiences to draw from. Everyone in your team has something to add, and the onus is on business owners to create an environment in which staff are encouraged and empowered to put forward their ideas.

    You might even choose to go further and create a culture where it is more uncomfortable to be seen to have nothing to add in strategy and ideation sessions than it is to step up, although this needs to be done with consideration so that you don’t terrify the introverts into leaving, and with enough structure that the extroverts don’t hog the microphone.

    3. Staff training staff

    When the lights go out, have a system for choosing someone to lead the training session.

    This takes some of the burden of training off management and will also make the employees feel appreciated for their knowledge.

    You want to set people up to succeed though, so consider providing guidelines and recommendations to assist those who might not be natural presenters.

    If you don’t want to do it this way and feel there are some knowledge gaps you or other directors or managers can fill in, use the time as official training slots hosted by yourself or management.

    4. Talk to each other

    I majored in both English Literature and Computer Science in university. On the one hand, you had individuals who enjoyed engaging in thoughtful and sometimes heated debate, and on the other you had those who would use instant messaging to talk to the person directly next to them. No prizes for guessing which were the English and which were the Comp Sci majors.

    My guess is that most workplaces will have a mix of members who behave like either group, and communication between them might not always go as smoothly as it could.

    My guess is also that you either currently have or will have cliques in your office, which can be very harmful. In two of the bigger companies I’ve worked in, I’ve observed what might even be described by the dramatically inclined as clique-vs-clique, and sometimes clique-vs-company warfare.

    If effort isn’t made to integrate those that don’t usually talk, at the very least you’re in for some chilly vibes. Consider addressing or pre-empting this by using unexpected pauses for some relationship building exercises.

    You might create a roster of discussion pairs with some recommended “getting to know you” questions just to get the ball rolling.

    If you work in a bigger company, it might well be possible that there are staff members who aren’t clear on what everyone actually does, so simply getting people to share information on what they do on a daily basis could help build relationships and educate staff on how the business actually works, which is something you shouldn’t assume they already know.

    On the external relationships front, you might see if you can schedule any face to face or phone catchups with clients or suppliers, when technology or logistical disruptions limit your options.

    To conclude, I can’t deny that unexpected downtime might throw a spanner in the works.  Follow these tips, however, and you’ll have some methods to brighten the future of your business while the lights are out.