HUNKERING UP!
A Business Turnaround
Over the last few months, as agreement with what the media has been saying has turned the state of the economy into a “fact” of life, I have been hearing more and more from business people that their present mode or strategy is to hunker down, in those words. At some point, I began asking people what that meant. And almost to a person, they physically demonstrate it by putting their head down, scrunching their shoulders closer together, and lean forward. “You know”, they say, “keep your eyes on your business, watch how you spend money, do what you gotta do.” They don’t usually say it, but the next thing I would expect them to say and I think they mean is: “until it’s over”.
That finally led me to what I consider a very well-thought through and intellectual response: “What’re you, nuts?” The banks are teetering, nobody’s lending, whole industries are on the verge of collapse, the government is spending a trillion dollars or more to stimulate the economy, and people are going to keep their noses clean and see if they are going to survive for the next few years? Is that a strategy or a reaction? Is that the best they can do?
I looked up the term hunker down in my trusty Wiktionary. Hunker means to squat or crouch (get the picture?). Hunker down, and idiomatic phrase, means :
- To take shelter; to prepare oneself for some eventuality; to focus on a task.
- To stubbornly hold to a position.
Now, I don’t know about you, but does taking shelter sound like a good entrepreneurial, bold, leadership-like approach to a problem? Does preparing oneself for some eventually sound like a take-charge, create your future, master your destiny declaration? Does focusing on a task evoke any confidence in someone’s ability to be the head of a company, large or small? And, come on, stubbornly holding to a position is an accusation of stupidity, not a strategy for moving ahead. It all seems to amount to sticking one’s head in the sand, but with a good justification for doing it.
I know this isn’t what people really meant to be saying. I know what they mean to be saying is that they are just going to be careful until things change. They are going to be smarter about what they do with their money; they are not going to take their existing customers for granted; they are going to keep focused on the important things to “weather the storm”. There are some good lessons and good wisdom in all of this, but is this all there is to being a leader in a difficult time? Most of the people I have had this conversation with have agreed that, when I put it that way, the answer to that question is a resounding ‘no’.
So I came up with the counter-phrase, hunkering up. To my way of thinking, hunkering up embraces all of the positive approaches as described above – be smart about money, value customers, keep focused – but it also opens one up to possibilities that may be found in the midst of this challenging period (if you know the joke, there’s a pony in their somewhere; if you don’t, never mind). The phrase evokes a completely different mental picture: one of not just possibility but of brightness; of looking out there, not just ‘in here’; of proactively taking advantage of the circumstances and emerging as a player, a winner; of demonstrating what you would want others to do if you really thought about it.
Here are some questions you can ask yourself or ask your team:
- What is the opportunity being presented to us in this? How could we use these circumstances to rise above the crowd? How can we emerge not just as a survivor but as a champion?
- There are people that are thriving because of these circumstances – why is that? What do they do or what are they doing that has them thrive? What can I/we learn from it? How could we take the same kind of advantage of what is going on?
- Imagine a future in which we had exceeded all expectations during the present circumstances. Actually imagine it, and then from that future ask, what did we do? How did we accomplish that?
- If we are looking up, and our competitors are looking down, what advantage could that be to us? What might we see up there? If we are proactive while our competitors are reactive, how might we thrive while they survive, at best? What might we do?
Winston Churchill said never, never , never give up. I might dare to add, never, never, never succumb. Never give up your vision. Never get resigned. Never fall asleep to the mass hypnotic trance of agreement on the way things are.
This is the role of a leader. A leader says, “We are going here”, and then she or he stays true to that, and perseveres, no matter what. She says, “Oh, the economy sucks, does it?”, and then adds, “Well how do we use this to propel us to our future?” Hunkering down is to die a little; to no longer see the light that some desired future represents. Those who hunker up may or may not succeed – what worthy journey comes with a guarantee of success? – but who would you bet on? Those that turn in, or those that look out?
Which one do you choose to be?