Devoted to Managers and those that seek to improve their management skills

With all the problems and coverage concerning the mortgage markets and how it could affect the availability of credit; not only for consumers, but for businesses as well, it's a good time to assess our situations and take inventory of what's happening and how it could impact our businesses.

The first thing to consider, in my estimation, is what it will do to the matrix of people's minds. What is all of this embedding within their thought processes, comfort zones and spending habits?

Most banks and lending institutions have already tightened up their mortgage lending policies and hedge funds and private equity have overall migrated to a tigher policy and way of looking at things.

Consumers, businesses and financial sources have all been impacted by the threat and unknown fallout from the current business climate we live in. That's what I mean by matrix of people's minds. There's something now within their psyche that wasn't there until recently.

We must be prepared for dealing with that implanted concern if we want to survive or grow during this time.

In the financial area, for example, Seth Tobias of hedge fund Circle T Partners, says this about current mindset of people: “People are tired and they’re going to reassess what kind of exposure they want ... I think you’re going to see a reduction in risk profiles.”

I think this is going to cut across all aspects of the minds of people ... whether they're consumers, people in business or financial sources.

We need to be thinking of things in reponse to these attitudes like rates of growth in our businesses, availability of funds, credit, risk, safety and running lean, among many things. We may have to be strongly defensive while more cautiously offensive in our strategies at this time.

I'm not talking fear in any way, just caution and going about things a little slower. What our data may have shown us three months ago probably has changed just as quickly now. Projections of expected growth may no longer exist, so if we borrow with former projections as the benchmark, we may find ourselves in big trouble if the consumer or other businesses don't have access to the funds they used to have, or psychologically aren't willing to take what they consider a gamble.

It no longer matters whether the threat is as deep or real as people think. If they think it's real - it is, whether we agree or not. That's the underlying problem we'll face in a lot of industries until we find out what's really going to happen in the overall marketplace.

One of the key measurements we need to strongly look at to assess our particular industry is how much concern is being shared by those we serve. Are they very concerned? In a near panic? Is there talk of tightening budgets? Are they saying credit is hard to attain? Those are the types of signals we need to look for now to determine the type of strategy we want to employ now.

Everything has changed in the minds of people over the last couple months, and things won't change in that area for some time. We need to be aware of this in relationship to whatever market we serve and financial institutions and money sources we count on for growth.