People losing jobs, the stock market is down and everybody’s offering “Hail Mary’s” for this current recession. People are frantic because contrary to the mandate of profitability and expansion, the economy is contracting and profitability is down to the sewers. How could have this happened so fast?
Truth is, this reccession is like the Tales of Vesperia monster, the Adephagos. It has always been there but some form of “shrine of Zaude” has shielded it from our eyes. It has happened before during the 1930′s and 1800′s and all it required to come back is a spark plug like the sub-prime mortgage problem. This is what I think a reflection of how much greed has gotten around. Think Bernard Madoff scandal. Or if you are in Japan, it could be the L&G Japan Scandal.
Though I agree with Robert Kiyosaki (Rich Dad Poor Dad) that a part of us has to be subtly greedy, I feel that some people have taken too much from the system and from other people as well. And now that it has come around, I dont know if the same people who have taken too much have the balls to fix it. Oh well, we cant do anything about the past but can hope to do something about what happens next.
For me, I personally feel that this recession is special. Because for me this is my second time around. Back then during the 2001 recession, during ZTek‘s time,I was only exposed to a very limited set of professional experiences. Right now I see myself as a little bit more skilled and more seasoned, engineer and technocrat. Moreso, back then I didnt have high speed internet, my own personal laptop and an internet with a fully diversified knowledgebase. My two cents or 1円(yen) on the great recession of 2009 is as follows :
A. An Opportunity For Re-Orientation
I see this recession as a time for re-orientation of a company’s goals and objectives. Mochiron!(Of course.) Any organization, hell even an individual, has a desire to survive. Therefore a recession is a great time to test and see if corporate objectives still meet the demanding times and the probable permanent change in the business scenery.
Lets take for example an outsourcing company. Everyone has his or her own opinion of outsourcing. But in light of this recession, this business is going to evolve. Consider this article “Offshore Outsourcing: What Role Will the Recession Play?”. Thank God somebody said out loud what I always wanted to say. In this light, if outsourcing is purely based on “mancount”, will it still be dominant in the coming days? I am a firm believer that any service based business, for a business relationship to endure, providers have to put more value on the table, lesser cost and better communication-cooperation system. Is more better or is less “betterer”? Then which scheme should you pursue?
B. A Time for Team Re-engineering
In line with cost cutting, i think recession in a purely business stand point, is a good time for weeding out. Weeding out because, as the term implies, those who cannot produce and dont like to produce should be “uninstalled”. Unlike democracy, corporate leadership is not a popularity contest. There are certain decisions you have to take, unpopular as they may seem. But dont get me wrong, team re-engineering is not just about laying people off. It has several approaches like :
1. In line of new “probable” businesses in sight, who are we going to hire?
2. Or better would be a do-more with same resource kind of outlook. Something like Team Restructuring, based on specialization and expertise. Think Venn Diagram. If you have 3 teams let us say A,B,C. Is it possible to create another team with same resource? Say :
a. Group A (Cleaning) Group B (Cooking) Group C (Cash Register)
so : Group D = Serving (1/2 of Group B and 1/4 of Group C depending on time schedule)
For a software company perhaps, call me mean, but it might be time to re-study existing personnel. Qualify and disqualify. Yep, i think it is time to measure the ranks once again and remove long-time-underperforming officers. Of course, if the finances can afford it, provide a judgement period for them to recover their “mojos”. How about engineers and foot soldiers, yep they too would be in the list too. But officers cost more, so they should be “relatively volatile”.
C. A Time for Cost Awareness
Undoubtedly, as this recession seems to be for the long haul, there is a genuine requirement to study the “financials”. The coffers have to be protected. And if that is so, all have to plan out against costs. Gone are the days of impulsive shopping for employees much as unplanned business trips. During my time with ZTek, Jerry Lopez, our finance officer would always make me create charts showing how I will execute and how much it will cost. Of course, the sales are indicated too. He would always then come up with his own version of the same plan, only that it costs cheaper, sometimes they are better too.
Simple solutions need not be very complex. For one, how about a four-day work week? Is making employees work from 8:00-19:30 so that they can take Friday off impossible?The four day work week makes a lot of sense in my opinion. Of course its obvious effect is there will be no overhead cost on the fifth day (electricity for one.). But if your organization executes an overtime boundary at 22:00 of the day, bottomline, the maximum allowable OT for a day in the week is 2.5 hours right? On the other side of it, you have a well-rested crew, you provide more family time for your team, and most importantly, you can provide them an opportunity to find other means to fight off the recession.
D. A Time for Necessary Creativity and Aikido
As the days go by, there will be a need for more creativity. During this recession, the desire to survive or protect the financials is more emphasized way beyond any other. And that need, grows as the days lag on. When ones back is on the wall, he or she has to fight back. “A cornered cat becomes a lion.” In this situation, since the foe is indomitable, we have to learn how to use its strength as our own. “To discard one’s strength and win by using the enemy’s strength.”,The Spirit of Aikido.
The strength of this recession comes from the idea that there is either no money to spend or no one wants to spend. Therefore it is imperative that we make consumers spend by creating an “imperative someting (like medicine)”, “a cool something (like iphone and ipods)”, and other somethings. New devices or new services, new uses for existing stuff (think Swiss Type Claim) so that we can sell more of them, one-time-single hit wonder solutions for everyday (think Disinfecting toothbrush container ), so on and so forth. Why do you think the combined sales of WII, PS3 and XBOX is the temporary eighth wonder in the world? As for PS3, do u really think a sales of 21.4M units is bad? Think again.
For a software guy like myself, well i have my own ideas. (Work In Progress…)
E. A Time for “Laborare est orare”.
I am a bit of a religious man. Just a bit. I believe that this too is a time of prayer. And when I say pray, it means a lot of things. First off let me share this very very interesting story on prayer. Recently I also witnessed some of my officers praying in the same fashion too, resulting to displacement. (thank god not lay-offs!)
I am in the opinion that prayers is not only about genuflecting or making the sign of the cross or facing a wall. “Laborare est orare“, roughly translating to “Work is Prayer”, just like the catholic monk Bernard prescribed, how he lived his life. If we were faced in front of a diety, and we were to be judged by how we pray, wont we be condemned by our diety for spending too much time kneeling? So yeah, this recession is just like that plane crash and the plane is much like our economy, our business unit or probably even our families finances. My point is, act out your prayers harder. Exhaust all means necessary to win your personal or group battle against this real-life Adephagos (or was this based from adephagia), mitigate the probability of failure. Mitigate risks, mitigate risks and mitigate more risks.
And as for the rest of the things that you cant control, leave that to luck, the fates or to your God. After all, even in my “most weirdest Japanese translation” of one of their proverbs, I believe that, “未来の事を心配したら鬼が笑う”. (mirai no koto wo shimpaishitara oni ga warau / the devil smiles once we worry so much about the future.) If you are still unsure, you can leave that to me if you want. Just kidding. 
All in all, this recession is a measurement of two things. One, this recession’s unfathomable depth and its massive wingspan reflect how much avarice has been running around, how greedy the world has gotten to be. Unfortunately however, that same AVARICE, is here to stay for good. Blame it on human nature.
The second thing about this recession is that surely, there will be people who will rise up and challenge it back, (think Franklin Delano Roosevelt). And in an organizational point of view, officers need to LOOK WITHIN MORE and SEE BEYOND MORE to fight it back. Or else everyone loses their job. This then brings me to the silver lining of this recession, this time is also a measurement of the human spirit. And like AVARICE, I assure you that that the INDOMITABLE HUMAN SPIRIT, will always be around.
Good luck and cheers to all those who work for a better economy.
