I suspect that anyone not concerned about the state of “things” going on in our world and specifically in our economy would reasonably be labeled as naïve.  We have big problems, they could get bigger in a hurry or maybe they won’t.  The loss of some long-standing financial icons is annoying, the potential for the choking off of access to working capital for otherwise healthy companies is downright disconcerting.  The issues being debated in Washington have long-since ceased being about Wall Street and are most squarely about mitigating catastrophic risk on Main Street.

You don’t have to look far for some pundit somewhere offering up the end of life as we know it, usually with comments about a worldwide depression the likes of which we’ve never experienced.  Hey, they may be right or they may not.  I’ve long since given up trying to peer into the crystal ball and prognosticate beyond the late George Carlin’s famous weatherman bit that called for a forecast of “dark, followed by widely scattered light in the morning.”  The sun will rise and it will still be in the east.

In spite of my inability to foretell the future, I do know one thing for certain, it is never good to panic.  For you science fiction buffs out there, Frank Herbert had it right when he wrote that, “Fear is the Mind Killer.”  Panic creates a fight or flight response, where rational thinking is replaced by instinctual flailing.  Individuals panic, participants in markets can panic, and organizations can panic.  More often than not, the panic results in dramatic or even fatal mistakes.

Unfortunately, we have recent experience with horrific scenarios.  What happened on 9/11 was unthinkable on 9/10.  There were no road maps for dealing with the grief and the anger, and for awhile no one understood what was next.  It was a time when the best that many could hope for was to process on taking the next breath.  In all likelihood, we are still dealing with the ripples of this unthinkable day, and those ripples will likely shape the lives for generations to come in some form and fashion.

In addition to the pundits and talking heads, some really smart people that I know are beginning to let fear creep into panic.  Discussions of how to grow, how to compete better and even discussions about the pursuit of excellence are being replaced with focus on retrenching, battening down the hatches and/or boarding up the windows for the storm on the way.  Again, we would be naïve to ignore the signs and we would be naïve to think that anyone actually understands the impact of this horrific financial mess unfolding in front of us in real time, albeit drawn out over the past few weeks.  It’s time to focus on taking one breath at a time.

While there is some probability that the worst cases will play out, I will place my bet on widely scattered light towards morning.  There are many reasons why the world’s global capital markets cannot stop and why the earth’s burgeoning population and the world’s rapidly growing economies will not stop consuming, investing and yes, even growing.

As you look at your own firm and your own situation, it is not a time to take foolish risks.  Frankly, it’s never a time to do that, so nothing has changed.  It is a time to adopt a philosophy that seeks to find opportunity in chaos.  It is a time to carefully evaluate your strategies and check your assumptions.  It is also a time to consider making some hard calls on your future.  Working for a firm in the post 9/11 world where the board and leadership had the courage to invest in reinventing the firm’s core offerings at a time when our competitors were scaling back R+D efforts, was a brilliant learning lesson. 

It’s always time to improve your talent…either by investing in growing their knowledge and capabilities and by culling the herd.  It’s a great time to evaluate spending, to hold marketing accountable to genuine measures of value creation and to deploy the best-trained, solutions focused sales force to serve your customers.  It’s also a remarkable time to scale up your communications with your stakeholders and with your employees and provide them opportunities to share their many great ideas.   

The Bottom-Line for Now:

At the end of the day, people must eat, people must clothe themselves and frankly smart people will figure out how to use the opportunity to challenge themselves and their organizations to improve.  The rest will start boarding up the windows to hunker down for a long, agonizing wait.  I know which team that I want to be a part of.