Bridging THE GAP
Posted: Wed Dec 03, 2008 11:58 am



Survival guide for tough times
KRIENGSAK NIRATPATTANASAI
With the economy as challenging as it is these days, a question I'm hearing more frequently from employees and managers is, "What can I do when times are tough?"
You have to put yourself in your boss's shoes first. Most bosses have two lists inside their heads. The first list has names of high performers - people they want to keep and groom. The other one is a blacklist, which has the names of employees whose exit would bring a feeling of relief. Ensure that you are on the right list. Here are some suggestions that could help you.
1. Be positive. Usually, people will feel bad when environments are bad. We cannot choose our environments but we can choose our attitude. Usually people ask the wrong question when facing adversity by saying, "Why is this happening to me?" This question has a psychological implication. Usually, people think that they have done everything they can, but they still face difficulties. This question does not lead to a solution. It is blaming others or the environment. The right question would be, "What can we learn from this adversity? What good could happen from this adversity?" Usually, we will learn and grow from the adversity.
2. Come to work early. The earlier the better. You and your competitors have 24 hours per day and five working days a week. You cannot rely on good fortune, as Louis Pasteur said a long time ago: Fortune favours the prepared mind.
3. Come up with a new way. If you do something the same way you did it before, you will get the same result. In fact it could be worse. With the new environment and difficult economic situation, you have to do much better. There are lots of initiatives we can learn from other industries or other countries. What you should do is search. Read more books or search the internet.
4. Treat customers better. This is a tough time and losing customers is not an option. Most organisations do not have that luxury. Your customers are also facing their challenges. They are probably under more pressure and more demand from their customers. Hence by default they demand better-quality products, faster or better services and cheaper prices from us. We must serve our customers better.
5. Be careful about waste. To minimise operating cost, you have to minimise waste. You can reduce the numbers of documents printed. You can reduce overtime. You can reduce time and waste by meeting more effectively and communicating better. You also can reduce work redundancy.
6. Sell your company's products and services. People think that selling is only the responsibility of the salespeople. It's not true. If a company has 200 staff, usually it will have fewer than 50% of its people in sales. If the rest help their sales team to expand the market, they could easily significantly increase sales. There are many ways to sell. You can contact your network directly. When someone dies, usually there are at least 100 to 150 guests. So we have quite a large number of connections. Sell directly to them or introduce them to your sales team. Everyone can help increase company revenue.
7. Stop being negative. Nobody wants to be around people with a negative attitude.
8. Stop whining. People who whine show their weakness. Humans evolved because we wanted to cope with our environment. Those who do not fight will disappear. Some people may want to fight but just whine to seek sympathy. There is no time for tears.
Bobby Bowden won the national championships in 1993 and 1999 as head coach of Florida State University, and is the all-time winningest football coach in major college history. Here is his tip to people facing challenges or adversities.
"You simply are not going to win all the time. You are going to lose some. People ask me, 'What do you have to do to be a successful coach?'
"You've got to get over the bad times. If you've never had adversity, you ain't gonna be nothing. You've got to have adversity to build your character and find out how tough you are and find out how good your judgement is. A person who is wealthy and born wealthy and never had to work, everything handed to them, I don't know how they could face the world when they're growing up.
"You gotta have adversity. You know there's going to be times you think you hadn't done enough, that you don't deserve to be a football coach anymore. But you've got to overcome it. You've got to fight your way to it. You can't listen to outside opinion."
Kriengsak Niratpattanasai provides executive coaching in leadership and diversity management under the brand TheCoach. He can be reached at coachkriengsak@yahoo.com. Copies of previous columns are available at http://www.thaicoach.com