How to Manage in Times of Crisis

I continue with my theme for May, reviewing business articles and books. Small, but power packed, is the best description of this book from Ichak Adizes, world renowned philosopher, author, and teacher. He is the father of Shoham who's article on being proactive, not adaptive, was reviewed earlier.

This is a must, not only for your library, but for your desk. So much of it is incredibly profound, you'll want to refer to it often. Accordingly, this will be a compilation of quotes you can remember and continuously apply, ESPECIALLY NOW.

He starts with Albert Einstein; "A crisis can be a real blessing to any person, to any nation, for all crises bring progress. It is in crisis that inventiveness, discoveries, and grand strategies are born."

Adizes - Crisis is a rapid change. It's all about strength, or lack thereof; if you're robust, change makes you stronger. But if you're weak, change can kill you.

Change is nothing new; what is new is that the rate of change is happening faster. And when we solve problems, change creates more: so we will always have problems. Therefore, if you have problems, relax! You are in good company.

You are as big as the problems you can handle; problems are a sign of growing. In Chinese, the word for problem and the word for opportunity is the same!

Do you want me to be a problem or an opportunity? You decide. If you don't do what you need to do, I will be a problem. If you react appropriately, I will be an opportunity. Which do you want me to be?

A problem left untreated, becomes a crisis. Our worldwide financial crisis did not happen overnight. It began with problems left untreated over time.

The crisis involves your competition, too; everybody has the same problem. Who is going to survive? Those who are most capable of change. Crisis makes the weak die faster and the strong grow faster. So the key to making a crisis an opportunity is to be strong BEFORE the crisis develops.

If there is no change, the mediocre catch up. We need to be more agile, to change faster than the competition-or at least as fast as the market is changing.

There's much more to come, so we'll continue in the next article.