Wrap up!

Hi Folks

I've had several conversations with people recently about the economic situation.

I've been comparing the current situation with the metaphor used by Jim Rohn. Rohn says "Life and business are like the changing seasons." If that's right, we are clearly heading into an economic winter right now.

And this leads me to question the assertions of government and journalists that the solution to our problems is for everyone to keep spending - for the government to build bridges and hospitals, and for people to spend their 2.5% VAT savings on the kind of consumer junk we've been wasting our money on for the past 15 years since the last recession.

It's like the government telling us: Turn up your heating and open all your doors and windows, and we can stop winter happening!

1. It won't work. We'd all end up as cold as Canute was wet.
2. It'd cost us a flipping fortune.

The appropriate behaviour for winter is to huddle down, conserve what we have and watch out to stop our neighbours starving or freezing to death. It certainly isn't to don your cricket whites and go out on the green in the hope that acting summery will make summer happen!

In team terms, I wonder if the metaphor of the seasons tells us anything useful? There's a lot of hype (usually by people selling books and trainign courses) about High Performance Teams. The science shows that all high-performing teams, companies, individuals, regress to the mean in the end; high performance is cyclical, not permanent.

If your team is in summer now, you need to think like the ants think (thanks again, Jim Rohn) and remember that winter is coming. Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but someday. Thankfully not for the rest of your life - if it's winter for your team (you're struggling, nothing seems to be going right, you feel under seige) you need to remember that every winter that's ever happened has ended sometime, and hang on in there. Recognise that things are tough right now, and look out for each other to make sure no-one is lost or damaged in these tough times.

And cook yourself up a mid-winter festival to keep everyone's spirits up. After all, that's what we do in real winters!

All the best,

Dave Bull
Team Coaching Network Ltd - http://www.teamcoachingnetwork.com
Campaign for Real Teambuilding - http://realteambuilding.co.uk