Think about this one:

When they tell you: you only have X days, months, to live.  What do you do?  Ignore first reactions like panic, sadness, regrets and the rest of it, what do you actually do?

Just to be more realistic, let’s assume that X is not a handful of hours or 3+ years because in the first case, you are not going to think of anything more time consuming than drinking a cup of tea, make your peace with those nearest to you, contemplate your life, or pray silently. In the second case, three years is sufficiently long for you to consider your specific circumstances, explore what is within the range of your possibilities and act accordingly.  You might decide to learn to fly light aircraft, go on an exotic holiday, write a novel, master Jimi Hendrix guitar riff of ‘Purple Haze’, or compile and read all the books you have always wanted to, but never had time to do so.

In this hypothetical case I am talking about X being between one and twelve months.

A company I worked for in the past hit hard times and needed to make substantial savings, quickly.  The CEO, who otherwise was a measured, thoughtful and experienced individual, lost the corporate plot and adopted this mantra of ‘cut expenditure substantially and quickly’.  We needed to save a lot of money because the business model was found short in an ever-changing commercial environment.  In other words, the business strategies worked effectively under certain conditions but proved totally useless when the conditions changed.  We also needed to do it quickly in order to save the CEO’s skin who was given unrealistic timescales to reverse the company fortunes.

The CEO assembled heads of departments and demanded deep cuts in staffing from each department.  Typical in a group situation, some said they would try their best; others resisted, seeking to discuss alternative solutions; and the rest, smelling blood, began to secretly plot against the CEO.  I for one, campaigned for an alternative solution, not because I had a specific suggestion to offer, but because I felt going for the obvious ‘thin the herd’ decision was too blunt an instrument as a first option.  As we were given 24 hours to re-assemble and offer our sacrificial lambs, I went to see the CEO privately to advocate for a reconsideration.

The CEO was not in the mood for a more considered way; he wanted to cull staff and that was that.  I said “but we need to consider the future and how to get back on the road to recovery”, his reply was “if we keep key staff only, we will be able to do that when the heat is off”.  I persisted that keeping what he called ‘key staff’ was easier said than done and it requires some thinking and planning.  Although he liked me as an individual, he was getting frustrated with me and said “look, just get me the list of staff you wish to make redundant and forget about planning; no sensible person wastes time planning for the future when they only have days to live”.

It was a typical smart remark the CEO was famed for.  I certainly did not have an immediate answer and being told in no uncertain terms to go and compile a list of people I was prepared to lose, left me no option but to slink out of his office and consider what my next move should be.  I met some of the other heads of departments and the advice I was given amounted to ‘shut up and do what you’re told’.  Fast forward three months or so and the situation was not much better.  The initial savings, saved some expenditure, the business model remained out of step with the market, and the CEO was dismissed anyway.  Fast forward another year or so, I was unable to come to terms with the new emasculated status quo so, I left the company by mutual agreement.  Fast forward another 18 months and the company was sold to its biggest competitor, with key individuals such as the new CEO and surviving heads of departments were rewarded handsomely for facilitating a smooth sell off.

Effectively, it was remarkable that the business limped along for three more years after that fateful day of people culling.  It is only with the benefit of hindsight that we can analyse these situations and say: the company should have done this and avoided doing that and so on.  I only wish I had the wisdom and courage to advocate exactly the opposite of what the CEO told me not to waste time planning when we only had days to live.  It is exactly what we should have done!  Clearly, I cannot say for sure if we spent precious time planning more thoughtfully, we would have saved the business.  However, given the eventual outcome, I believe we missed an opportunity to survive with a renewed business model and our collective pride intact.

Legend has it that the cruise band continued to play music while the Titanic was sinking.  People also use the analogy of the crew re-arranging the chairs on the ship’s deck instead of doing something useful like help survivors to get to the life boats etc.  Whether such fanciful events actually happened or not is impossible to prove but, engaging in futile activities like playing music and arranging chairs on decks is just an expression of panic and lack of leadership, which is not what we are talking about.  The story of the Titanic is a story of a sudden catastrophe rather than a looming business issue that the leadership over-reacts to by throwing people overboard in order to lighten the load and survive with fewer people, but without knowing what to do next.

So, whilst I do wish you a long and healthy life, I urge you to continue to think about your future when someone tells you ‘you no longer have a future to consider’.  The alternative is to lie back and let the tanks roll over you, thus allowing for a self-fulfilling prophecy to prevail.  This philosophy applies to companies as well as individuals.