EACH OF US IS THE CEO and CAPTAIN OF OUR SHIP
Wednesday, May 20, 2020
Can we cope with changes, can we survive with our person intact, will our country survive and will society look at all like it did before?
We all sit at different places along chronological paths – varying degrees to which we’ve already strayed from our course of regular, healthy, typical, planned, or expected lives.
What is 2020 and beyond going to become?
When will we be done with it, and when will this pandemic be done with us?
If you think that’s too much to wrap your head around, relax, you can handle it.
Here’s da ’ting, mankind is supposed to be the supreme critter, atop the food chain, atop the brain hierarchy, and for the tough math – we have invented computers that can store, retrieve, rearrange and produce stunning results. But they cannot think, feel, worry, love, etc.
This ‘how we are dealing with life right now’ quandary is left up to you.
And to me.
Which brings me to politics and government.
I’m more concerned than ever about how we are governed – more impressed by brilliant career civil servants and less impressed by less-than-brilliant leaders in every jurisdiction.
No, I’m not planning a move to Taiwan, New Zealand, or Iceland – but you have to be impressed. Their economies are impacted too, while their undertakers are having a slow-season. Wouldn’t that be a nice problem to have – that mortuaries, gravediggers, etc. would need financial help because their businesses had declined?
No leader who knows the way, no magic formula or magic beans – our existence is subject to every bit of bad news you can imagine, and we are living through a journey of historic proportions.
Hard choices are made by leaders who are advised – but whatever their advice, we all live with the consequences of their choices, wise or unwise, ill-informed or just plain crazy; we don’t get to choose the ones we buy into, we are part of the collective ‘we.’
Closing everything. OK, not everything, but nearly everything.
What would I have done?
We could argue that we would have acted more decisively, more quickly, and more compassionately.
Opening everything. OK, not everything, but soon every category of enterprise – provided they follow the rules, provided they follow instructions, will reopen. What would I have done? I would have taken more time, I would have listened to doctors and scientists more. I think I would have, but these decisions were not in my hands.
What should this teach us?
What is my point?
Businesses that don’t reopen, or ones that do which don’t survive – that will be their reality.
Far worse than ever.
Possibly worse than the great depression.
Industries that make no sense will fail.
Projects, properties, ventures, ideas, and products will fail. They always do – and many might have been viable in theory will not work in our new reality.
The converse is that new things we’ve never heard of before will flourish.
Our mindset as consumers, altered; viewpoint of directors around boardroom tables – gelded too, their duty to resist hasty and stupid, to steer their ship, to guide their company to best advantage for stakeholders and shareholders alike, skewed and uncertain.
But each of us is CEO of our life – accountable only to ourselves.
We ARE up to the challenge.
Reader feedback:
Agreed, Mark. I was turned down for an mortgage by ATB in late January in spite of 2 years of contract work with the same employer and a continuing contract at that time which *technically* should have qualified me. I had a cash down payment saved. Think they knew something they were not disclosing at that time? Something smells here...., JB, Edmonton, AB
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