Coping with chaos

Cautious or opportunistic?

We should be getting used to this. Thriving on Chaos, as Tom Peters called it in 1988!

Since then we’ve had multiple crises causing economic and business chaos – from the dotcom bust of 2001 to the financial meltdown of 2008 and the pandemic of 2020 to the current Trump-induced turmoil of a new world order in geopolitics, trade and military alliances and global economies. How do we cope now?

Tom Peters’ book, Thriving on Chaos - Handbook for a Management Revolution, runs to more than 600 pages of solid advice on strategies and tactics for business managers to cope with all the issues in constant flux, the changing ground rules, and the uncertainty attached to all previous assumptions and accepted practices.

I’ll try to summarize some of the basic principles on coping with crises and thriving through chaos. The challenge for business managers is to navigate between caution and opportunism to avoid the risks and exploit the opportunities.

Exploiting a crisis. Be careful how you do it.

I wrote this article a few years ago to advise of appropriate management tactics to survive and thrive through challenging times but use them with caution. Don’t overdo it!

So what are some helpful ideas to respond effectively?

1. Stay focused Avoid being distracted by the bombardment of bad news. Misery may love company, but everybody remains miserable if you just talk  about it and do nothing. Be creative and don’t neglect the good news; look for the silver lining in the dark clouds.

2. Be relevant Costumers will be postponing or redirecting their purchase decisions. Can you keep their business with new services or adapting your packaging, pricing, terms and conditions?

3. Leverage the sense of urgency Employees and customers are sensitive to the same issues and challenges and will be amenable to new solutions. More likely to accept cost cutting, postponing projects, revising compensation and benefit plans, changing business models, re-aligning marketing programs, raising prices and reducing services. Take advantage of the sense of urgency that exists; just be cautious not to do permanent damage to employee, customer, and supplier relationships.

4. Recognize the changing environment Revise your corporate budgets and business plans. Update external benchmarks to remain competitive.

5. Look for new opportunities Build on the failures and lost customers of shaky competitors; or buy them out.

6. Talk to your bank Make sure they are not worrying unnecessarily; or at least worrying for the right reasons and hearing directly from you not somebody else.

7. Avoid being the unwilling prey Manage appearances; be prepared to take the initiative. Know your value to customers and your preferred business partners.

In summary: Be brave, be flexible, be creative.

We are currently living through extremely challenging times with multiple crises all happening at the same time. The extended duration of stress and disruption to our lives and businesses can lead to over-reaction and bad decisions that may cause irreparable damage – employees quit, clients and customers go elsewhere.

Be cautious about exploiting the crisis. Employees and customers may be receptive to accepting changes because they understand the current conditions affecting everyone. Supply chains have been disrupted, skilled labour is lacking, costs are rising, but arbitrary and unjustified price increases or cancellation of services will not be acceptable.

Be better. Do better.

Be an Enlightened Entrepreneur.

Your Uncle Ralph,

Del Chatterson

Learn more about Enlightened Entrepreneurship at: LearningEntrepreneurship.com 

For more of Uncle Ralph's advice for Entrepreneurs read Don't Do It the Hard Way & The Complete Do-It-Yourself Guide to Business Plans.

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