N
nintyeight
Guest
I just read an interesting article how some companies survive bad times. Here is part that refers to $Cut Bill.
"...The right people do what they say they will do, which means being really careful about what they say they will do. It's key in difficult times. In difficult environments our results are our responsibility. People who take credit in good times and blame external forces in bad times do not deserve to lead. End of story.
Given our past prosperity, most executives today have never experienced a crisis like this one. Can they learn to adapt?
One of the big lessons we've learned is that turbulence is your friend. If you were disciplined and prepared before the storm came, you should be thankful for those times. Take Southwest Airlines. Think about the turbulence it has already experienced - interest rate changes, deregulation of the airline industry, fuel shocks, 9/11 - and still Southwest has learned how to be stronger than others. Southwest was once a startup company with cash-flow problems. Their famous 20-minute turnaround time came about because of cash constraints. They had fewer planes, but they could get them back in the air quicker. They used adversity to invent a discipline that they never lost.
And Southwest is the best-performing stock between 1972 and 2002, which includes 9/11. It has always managed itself in good times as if they were bad times. They had the discipline to grow slowly; 88 cities were clamoring for them to come, and they would open four. If you're managing for the quarter-century, you only open four so that when the bad times come, you're ferocious.
Right now, it seems as if people are panicking - or are paralyzed about decisions.
Almost across the board, people are worried. As a rock climber, the one thing you learn is that those who panic, die on the mountain. You don't just sit on the mountain. You either go up or go down, but don't just sit and wait to get clobbered. If you go down and survive, you can come back another day. You have to ask the question, What can we do not just to survive but to turn this into a defining point in history?
Look at World War II, with the story of Churchill's 25 Royal Air Force squadrons. France was losing, and Churchill wanted to fight on, so he asked how many squadrons of Spitfires Britain needed to ensure its survival. The military said 25. So he set them aside. We need to set aside our 25 squadrons today, just as Intel got an equity investment from IBM in the mid-1980s when the semiconductor industry was in crisis. Churchill wasn't putting aside the 25 squadrons so he could sit still; he was doing it so that he could fight on. His goal was not to survive; it was to prevail.
I don't care how hard this period is. You have to have the combination of believing that you will prevail, that you will get out of this, but also not be the Pollyanna who ignores the brutal facts. You have to say that we will be in this for a long time and we will turn this into a defining event, a big catalyst to make ourselves a much stronger enterprise. Our characters are being forged in a burning, searing crucible."
"...The right people do what they say they will do, which means being really careful about what they say they will do. It's key in difficult times. In difficult environments our results are our responsibility. People who take credit in good times and blame external forces in bad times do not deserve to lead. End of story.
Given our past prosperity, most executives today have never experienced a crisis like this one. Can they learn to adapt?
One of the big lessons we've learned is that turbulence is your friend. If you were disciplined and prepared before the storm came, you should be thankful for those times. Take Southwest Airlines. Think about the turbulence it has already experienced - interest rate changes, deregulation of the airline industry, fuel shocks, 9/11 - and still Southwest has learned how to be stronger than others. Southwest was once a startup company with cash-flow problems. Their famous 20-minute turnaround time came about because of cash constraints. They had fewer planes, but they could get them back in the air quicker. They used adversity to invent a discipline that they never lost.
And Southwest is the best-performing stock between 1972 and 2002, which includes 9/11. It has always managed itself in good times as if they were bad times. They had the discipline to grow slowly; 88 cities were clamoring for them to come, and they would open four. If you're managing for the quarter-century, you only open four so that when the bad times come, you're ferocious.
Right now, it seems as if people are panicking - or are paralyzed about decisions.
Almost across the board, people are worried. As a rock climber, the one thing you learn is that those who panic, die on the mountain. You don't just sit on the mountain. You either go up or go down, but don't just sit and wait to get clobbered. If you go down and survive, you can come back another day. You have to ask the question, What can we do not just to survive but to turn this into a defining point in history?
Look at World War II, with the story of Churchill's 25 Royal Air Force squadrons. France was losing, and Churchill wanted to fight on, so he asked how many squadrons of Spitfires Britain needed to ensure its survival. The military said 25. So he set them aside. We need to set aside our 25 squadrons today, just as Intel got an equity investment from IBM in the mid-1980s when the semiconductor industry was in crisis. Churchill wasn't putting aside the 25 squadrons so he could sit still; he was doing it so that he could fight on. His goal was not to survive; it was to prevail.
I don't care how hard this period is. You have to have the combination of believing that you will prevail, that you will get out of this, but also not be the Pollyanna who ignores the brutal facts. You have to say that we will be in this for a long time and we will turn this into a defining event, a big catalyst to make ourselves a much stronger enterprise. Our characters are being forged in a burning, searing crucible."