![]() ![]() On September 11, most business activity ceased in North America, because watching these events on television was simply too hard to withstand without taking time out to grieve. This shift to neutral occurs naturally when catastrophic events unfold. Athletes give their bodies a day of rest per week for the same reason. The lessons for today’s leaders: While driving change is often at the top of the CEO’s agenda, it is important to shift to neutral for brief periods of time to recapture energy. After this seven-year hiatus, Lenin’s successor, Stalin, felt that the country had recovered enough strength and resumed the pace of change. In 1921, after four years of gruesome revolutionary reforms, he stunned his critics and followers by ushering in a New Economic Policy (NEP) that stopped all reforms and actually turned back the clock on radical changes his party had initiated. ![]() Vladimir Lenin, who overthrew the Russian monarchy in 1917, understood this. Yet pausing in the present allows leaders to think and recharge their batteries, and gives people an opportunity to catch their breath without the added anxiety of coping with taxing change. This is almost counterintuitive in an age of constant re-engineering, innovation and change. Perhaps the most urgent task for leaders in tough times is to take a break from speed and change. ![]() 11 and economic uncertainty have spun leadership challenges rarely seen before: How are business leaders supposed to motivate, energize and focus themselves and their distracted employees on the task at hand? How do leaders combat the paranoia of bad times-the “are-we-next symptom?”-and fire up morale when everyone is busy looking over their shoulders? What is a leader to do when just “staying the course” is a challenge, and introducing change now seems as improbable as launching an IPO? Companies with offices in the World Trade Center, by having to respond to the unthinkable, have learned the lessons quickly: Acknowledge the facts, be visible, reassert purpose and foster new leaders. With the grimness of recession supplanted by fear of terrorist attacks and war, business faced a new challenge: how to deal with the double play of deflated economic prospects and the anxiety of flying and doing business normally in anything-but-normal conditions.Įven though the specter of a prolonged recession has been replaced by sluggish recovery in the U.S. The Dow retreated to its 10,000 plateau, and investors who found themselves holding shares in doomed e-companies such as ICG or Webvan made a quick egress from Wall Street and Bay Street. After nine years of record growth, the markets finally caved in to reflect the reality of global oversupply and the partial collapse of the new economy. Back in March last year, the official flag of recession was hoisted up the North American economy’s mainmast. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
Details
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |