Bad Times are Good

We can all see dark clouds gathering ahead. The western world is in the throes of a recession, there’s a financial crisis that has got its foot stuck in the door, regulators are battling solutions behind not-so-closed doors. Meanwhile people are losing jobs, capital is drying up, and just about everything has hit the fan. While that appears to be a picture far removed from us, no country is an island today and India is no exception. The Indian economy has started to feel the beginnings of the pain, and by the looks of it, we need to be prepared for the tremors.

So, what do we do when turbulent times begin to creep in through the back door? I’d like to share a real life narrative here that shows us the power of conviction and persistence when you hit a bad patch. At the time of the dotcom bust, e-commerce suddenly seemed like a bad word and investors were becoming increasingly disenchanted with the virtual world. Jeff Bezos, who began amazon.com from the garage of his home in 1994, was undeterred. Having gone live in 1995 and reached the one million customer mark by 1997, he was sailing along when the dot-bust hit the internet. In 2000 amazon.com was forced to lay off 150 workers. The next year, it posted a loss of $1.4 billion. Many companies folded up, others changed tracks but Jeff Bezos believed in the power of the internet and did not buckle. He continued to expand the services provided on amazon.com. In fact, he stayed steadfast on the path of lowering costs even as profits dwindled simply because he believed that was the right way to go in the long run.

I read about him warding questions on how he was taxing the patience of his investors and shareholders with conviction that he was doing the right thing even though it may not be evident then. In turn, to reflect his own personal commitment, he passed up any pay raise or bonus for several years in a row. The rest is history. Amazon today is a case study in e-commerce success having achieved over $ 500 million in profits by 2004, nudging its way into the S&P 500.

So, the question is that when bad times strike, should we take the punch or should we, like Jeff Bezos did, stick to our belief and fight back?

Well, fight back we must. To begin with, we must stare at the situation square in the eye, assess the impending change, and then reinvent ourselves to fit the new picture. Having done so, we revaluate and then once again look ahead to ensure you stay ahead at the next step – and the next. This is a continuous cycle of change.

It is in times of a slowdown that smart engineers invest in skill development. Everybody can make hay while the sun shines, but it is in the darkness that the true stars shine out. There is always a silver lining to economic slowdown. As businesses slow down expansion and recruitment, it compels our youth to look at life as hard work – and hard work will provide us good CEO’s for tomorrow.

But of course, while fighting a slowdown, we need to understand that times, be they good or bad, don’t last. They will come and go several times in one’s life and must be treated with equanimity. India is a great long-term story and the show has just begun. We will see villages prosper, towns build the infrastructure to become megacities, with each city the size of a European country. There is plenty of action ahead in India and so there must be plenty of fight left in us. So, let’s hang on here and hang in there, and look hard and square at the changing kaleidoscope, to pick the right strategy to speed up again.