"In the short-term, painful measures were required."
One of the unfortunate side effects of the focus on quarterly earnings by businesses is the pressure to make short-term decisions to placate shareholders.
Privately held businesses are also prone to the same temptation, as they make decisions based on short-term thinking.
Either way, there will come a time in a business where we will need to take measures that may be painful for a season of time in order to bring things to a much higher level.
Margaret Thatcher had experienced this when she took over as Prime Minister of England and throughout her reign.
The mess she inherited was so bad there was nothing she could do but take extremely difficult steps to rectify the horrid conditions she faced. I'm not going to get into what they were so we don't get off of business, but the point is we will at times face difficult times in business which will require some tough medicine to heal it.
When the time and circumstances require it, we must be willing to take the steps required to handle it, no matter what the short-term costs are. Business leadership requires it.
The major thought with this is to understand any tough measures we take will only last for a short time. Now when I say short time, I mean it could be a year or two. It would obviously depend on the situation you face and the depth of the problem.
I stepped into a situation one time where the business was almost run into the ground and the quality horrendous. It took a between a year and two years to take care of the situation. Some it wasn't that pleasant either.
It is harder with a publicly owned company where shareholders have been socialized to think of things in terms of three-month periods. Still, for the benefit of the company and its shareholders, some business leaders will need to get outside that time frame and implement the steps needed to bring the desired results.
One of the more important things to do in these times is keep lines of communcation open and keep our ears to the ground when rumors start to flow. To allow rumors to go unanswered can result in an entire scenario being created that doesn't exist, but is acted upon by workers as if it's a reality.
Another thing to do is not hide out in our offices or away from our people. They need to know we're out there and unafraid while the tough steps they're having to endure are in motion. It's not a time to separate ourselves from them.
Margaret Thatcher Resources:
The Best Quotes From Margaret Thatcher's 'Statecraft'
Margaret Thatcher & the Revival of the West
Interview with Margaret Thatcher
Magaret Thatcher's Life in the Shadows
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