Always Creating Value™ Podcast | How to Convert Crisis into Achievement

https://estowemanagement.com/always-creating-value-podcast/

Mark Fowler, president of Stowe Management Corporation, which is a business reengineering firm helping companies both in crisis and growth and Chief Executive Officer of Revolutionary Conversations, a training organization based on the book revolutionary conversations, the tools you need for the success you want. We love the melding and the blending of communication conversation as it relates to both business, family, career, any day and anything. These two businesses go hand in hand. I just spoke at a California Society of CPAs annual forensic conference.  I was asked to talk about crisis and crisis management and dealing with the various areas of crisis because crisis comes in some really, really different forms. Sometimes we don't even know we're in crisis. And today, I'd like to give you a little note that will help you begin to think about how crisis does exist all the time. I know when we go home from business, we think we've done really well and tomorrow is going to continue to be and then all of a sudden, there's a hurricane or tornado or all of a sudden, one of your vendors, no longer is in business.  it's an amazing thing that we think that things are stable. The traditional way to look at crisis is to look at it from an event perspective. In other words, that hurricane, that tornado,  that a customer that is more than 30% of your business suddenly decides not to do business with you anymore.  Over the years,  working with companies both in crisis, as well as in growth, we noticed that it doesn't always just come in an event; we'd like to think about it in a way that and we've been able to identify over the years, the fact that somewhere down the line on a fairly consistent basis, companies, businesses, individuals, no longer are creating value consistently.  We are, instead, over time, eroding the things that made us stable.

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One situation I talked about at the conference was an entertainment company that had been growing rapidly for about 12 years. And about a year and a half, before it started to lose its momentum, it started not to be able to pull itself together. It wasn't getting the artists that they wanted it was slowing down and they needed to figure because there was a lot of vigorous energy in there. And one of the things that we did was pulled everybody together, including seven departments. And it turned out that they weren't talking to each other. We did a great retreat, and we helped them bring themselves together. And then over about a year, we ended up doubling the business. And we could have looked at that and say, Oh, that was just a, you know, a great thing that happened. And then, a year or so later, we were back for a party.  One of the executives mentioned that they were doing so well because everybody was so happy. It's just like when the owner's wife was alive, and I said really? Well, it turned out that she was the glue. She was the one thing They kept everybody going as they grew and people had problems, everything from cupcakes, to cakes, to taking people on trips, spending time in the cafeteria, and talking to them one on one to help them get through the day. And when she passed away, nobody was there to do that. 

So a crisis can happen and be brewing at any point in time in your business and in your career as well. You can break crises up into several things.  This Podcast outlines them.