It promised to be a difficult conversation. However, the outcome inspired me.
I needed to explain an awkward situation to a supplier and to apologise that it had arisen. His response was completely unexpected. “Not at all. I enjoyed the discussion, and I’m glad we’ve had it,” he said. “We’ve been in similar circumstances in the past and managed to overcome them successfully.”
My sense of relief and appreciation were enormous. Since then, the business relationship between our two companies has deepened and we are on an even more solid footing for mutual support future.
Something good arose out of something that might have been bad.
This came in the context of the Covid-19 lockdown, which has brought much of the business sector into utter disarray. Many companies are unable to pay salaries or their suppliers after five weeks of inactivity. For the manufacturing sector, lockdown has now lifted, but the wreckage in the sector, including in the wood-treatment industry, is considerable. Many companies have been forced to close.
“When the tide goes out, we will see who has been swimming naked.”
This is unfortunate because when lockdown lifts fully, if financial liquidity is still sufficient we are likely to experience a mini-boom in many industries including the construction, agriculture and electricity provision sectors whom we serve, and all involved in imports and exports.
Businesses who are positioned to survive a recession are the most likely to benefit.
These dynamics have led me to reflect on the best approach for positioning a business to survive in the long-term.
For many companies – and I believe this remains the dominant model of business – the sole point of business is to make financial quick return through growth at all costs. This leads to a ruthless competition on price to achieve the highest possible sales volumes.
Services are sacrificed, and companies become hollow shells compared to what they might have been previously. Ultimately, businesses run on this model do not survive, as over time they run out of people to sacrifice, and recessions hit them badly. As Warren Buffet has famously said, referring to companies in unsustainable debt, “When the tide goes out, we will see who has been swimming naked.”
Something has to change in the way we do business. We all want to live comfortable lives, but there is a thin line between comfort and excess. What is business really about? Surely it’s to help people create better lives and a better society? If it’s just about money it would be rather boring, in my view.
A business is the sum of its people and its culture. A business with substance is put in place over time and with care, implementing a long-term vision.
To do this, we need to be conscious of the options within our human psyches. I believe that people are intrinsically good but are born into a current of human activity with many opportunities for darkness. It’s much easier to make a selfish and destructive decision than to swim against the tide.
These destructive decisions start out small, and the more responsibility we have, the easier it is to make them and the more quickly they mount up. The rot mounts up, and before long we have created a toxic personal and corporate culture.
A business is the sum of its people and its culture. A business with substance is put in place over time and with care, implementing a long-term vision.
Yet our intentions are more important than the actual decisions we make. When our intentions are good, and even when we make mistakes, we are able to find solutions with others who have good intentions too. We understand that each other means well, and this understanding endures.
This was our experience with our supplier during that awkward conversation. His intention, and ours, became evident.
We now appreciate one another more than previously and will help each other’s business.
This is an era in we need which to have the difficult conversations, based on honesty and a shared interest, so that we can help one another to position our businesses better for the future.
I am committed to growing a business of energy and creativity in which our team can flourish and through which, together, we can make a positive impact on the world around us.
- LOBSTERS AND ENLIGHTENMENT - March 15, 2021
- THIS IS PERSONAL – AND IT’S BUSINESS - January 19, 2021
- THE VALUE OF A GOOD SUPPLIER - May 25, 2020
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