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BY KATHY GREEN
Last autumn, as leaves started to change color in my backyard and fall to the ground one by one, I was reminded that everything has a season. While I wasn’t looking forward to the onset of winter, I certainly recognized that it was coming all the same.
As I watched the falling foliage, I realized that the change in seasons felt familiar, like I had experienced it not only in nature, but also in business and life. As a business owner, I have seen a number of my customers downsize, cut expenses, and buy fewer services from us. We, in turn, have tightened our belts.
I have faced a business winter much harsher than those before, and it has caused me to muster all of the skills that I have so I can weather it. If I’m honest, I know it also has sharpened my business skills and made me a stronger, more versatile leader. However, it also has challenged my natural leadership style — one that is predominant for a number of women.
To Everything, There is a Season
Whether it’s the trees outside, our lives, or our businesses, everything has a lifecycle — a time to expand, plant, grow anew, and a time to contract, shed what is no longer serving us, and make way for that which is yet to come.
As leaders, we are challenged with not only adapting to the cycle that is present, but also with creating a course to optimize it. Will we recognize the cycle and take advantage of what it has to offer, or will we fight it tooth and nail, trying to overcome a force too large for us?
Most of the time, my role in life has been to expand, to supply whatever is needed to help people and businesses grow. Unfortunately, the tough economic times of the last year have caused many of us, myself included, to face contraction. Adjustment hasn’t been easy.
Part of my role as a business owner and consultant is to manage through the difficult times in a way that will lead to a brighter future for our business and our clients. Since my natural tendency has been to develop (products, services and people), contracting presents much more of a challenge.
Leading during difficult times often requires faster decision-making, and therefore, a more hierarchical approach than the one I’m used to applying. My natural leadership style has been much more inclusive, resulting in slightly slower cycle times for decisions, a luxury one can’t afford in a sluggish economy.
According to the Center for Women’s Business Research, I may be in good company.
Women business leaders are less hierarchical, take more time when making decisions, and seek more information. Women are more likely to draw upon input from other business owners, employees, and subject-matter experts.
Between 1997-2000, $1 million-plus women-owned firms increased over one and one half times the rate of all comparably sized firms. One might conclude that we know how to grow and expand businesses better than most. However, although our styles are frequently effective in times of expansion and growth, they may not allow us to manage a contracting business lifecycle as well.
If you, like me, are more at home with expanding and growing businesses than with contracting them, you may be interested to know that there are, in fact, ways in which you can enhance your ability to optimize business performance during times of contraction.
Stay Focused/Make the Tough Calls Sooner
As a former officer of Fortune 500 companies and now a woman business owner of a $1 million-plus company, I know that it is critical to focus on the health of the business. In fact, I recruit people who will put the welfare of the company ahead of their personal gain.
Yet, when I’m faced with making tough headcount decisions or restructuring a group of partners who are my friends, it’s easy for me to overplay my relationship strength and beat myself up over the need to make decisions that will impact people negatively.
To be honest, I sometimes spend too much time playing the “what if I just….” scenario, but that one goes nowhere. After all, let’s face it. I (we as owners) simply can’t do more. Therefore, that type of thinking only creates an energy drain, just when I need that energy the most.
The Heartmath Institute, a nonprofit institute founded to research the effects of mental and emotional stress on the heart, brain and nervous system, refers to this phenomenon as over-care, over-identity, and over-attachment.
In a book entitled Overcoming Emotional Chaos, co-authors Doc Childre (founder of the Heartmath Institute) and Deborah Rozman, PhD, say the draining cycle begins when “we over-identify with a situation, an issue, or a person we care about — in other words, we identify too much. We begin to over-care and want to see things go a certain way. We get over-attached to how we want things to turn out and are unable to see other options.”
As women business owners, who have often created and nurtured the entities we own; not identifying with the well-being of the people who have helped us create those businesses we have birthed feels like a lot to ask.
Yet, personalizing these situations — allowing a time of contraction to feel like we’re letting others down, or failing — isn’t going to benefit anyone. So, what do we do?
We center, focus on the health of the business, and make the tough calls needed to strengthen the business. It’s important to separate the decision from how you implement it. Once the decisions are made, we can utilize our strong relationship skills to manage the necessary transitions with care and grace.
Determine What’s Ready to Die … and Let it Go
Reflect and take the time to evaluate current revenue streams, key processes and procedures, and your organization’s effectiveness. Identify areas in which time and resources are no longer worth the investment.
Sometimes, it’s time to retire a line of business. The market may have already spoken, but you’ve still been trying to convince your clients that the product/service remains a fit for their needs, and you’ve been spending too much time trying to keep it alive.
Other times, an approach you’ve taken to leading or managing is no longer serving you. Earlier in the business lifecycle, it may have been necessary for you to make most of the decisions for those people working for you. If your employees still look to you to make most of the decisions three years later, it may be time to reevaluate your style — or the people who you employ.
This is also a good time to evaluate expenses and clarify fixed expenses. Are they fixed, or is it time to downsize office space and other budget drains?
Investing the time to reevaluate your company’s health in a contracting lifecycle is painful. But, it will pay real dividends and make your business more nimble going into a growth cycle.
Reinvest
Don’t get me wrong. Getting lean and mean doesn’t mean squandering resources. It’s simply a good time to reevaluate your finances and your level of capitalization and to ensure that you have your resources properly allocated, especially against anticipated growth engines.
In our own business, we use this time to improve our capital position and consider all of the potential financing options available to us.
Remember the Constants
As leaders during these difficult times, there are personal principles to which we need to remain loyal. We can’t afford to lose sight of them. They include the following:
- Keep the mission of the organization in front at all times.
- Hold to the values you’ve identified. As the saying goes, one’s character isn’t defined by what she or he does during good times, but by the actions she or he takes during difficult ones.
- Communicate. Leaders often isolate and pull back during difficult times, as if that would somehow shelter everyone, including themselves, until things change for the better. It seldom works that way. In the absence of communication from the leader, people will fill the void with fears.
- Take care of yourself, and maintain some sense of balance. Every time I fly, I hear flight attendants explain that in an emergency, you must put your own oxygen mask on first before tending to your child’s mask. That’s worth remembering, for without oxygen, you’re of no use to anyone — your child or yourself.
- Apply what you learn.
Kathy Green is a founding partner and president of Executive Coaching Connections (www.executivecoachingconnections.com) . She can be contacted at 847-920-0190 (e-mail: info@executivecoachingconnections.com).
(This article is reprinted from the Spring 2004 edition of Enterprising Women magazine. Copyright 2004 Enterprising Women Inc. Reproduction in whole or part is prohibited, except by express permission of the publisher.)
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