Crisis & Combat: A Two Part Series
Part II: People
People are the backbone of your business who are the basis of the everyday survival of your company They will also be the most likely cause of the problems that it will face.
It is a goal of every business owner to put the right people in the right places to ensure that they are running their business properly. The people up high must be trustworthy, and those below must be willing to learn and adapt.
Crisis’ involving your employees can and do happen all the time. However, it is not always the grave and sad stories we hear on the television about grave misconduct. Sometimes a crisis can be as simple as a valued employee, or department head stepping down. Who will fill the roll? How will the company survive? Leadership and value to the team are what make employees irreplaceable, how do you adjust when you lose someone with those qualities?
For instance, how do you combat the loss of a great mind, such as Apple recovering from the death of Steve Jobs, a genius in every form of the word? The Apple brand could have been taken from the world when Jobs was, but his successor, and old right-hand man, Tim Cook, did what was necessary to not only save but improve what Jobs had created. Cook knows he cannot operate alone, and run the company as Jobs did, so he found different areas to succeed in.
For example, Apple has become a much more collaborative company with departments working together, instead of separate. Jobs was an individual mind, he kept his work to his own hands because he operated independently. Cook needs his team more, and therefore calls for collaboration. Apple has also put more importance on engaging the media and taking social responsibility by engaging in environmentally friendly ways of production. Jobs was less interested in public outlook and more so relied on his brain to do the talking. So what do you do when you can’t be the same great mind as your predecessor? You find a way to be your own great mind.
After the initial shock of a loss, the most important action becomes the first one in the right direction. To deal with a shock involving who is running your business as a whole, or just a sector of it, you don’t have to look any further than to the next person up. Their mind may not be the same, but change is the only constant in the business world, you might as well run with it.
