It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like 2007 (Here’s How to Prepare) Ep. 104

There has been a lot of discussion going around about the similarities between now and 2007. This conversation is happening in the marketplace, but I’ve also been involved in similar discussions with leadership teams throughout a fair number of industries. Despite organizational differences, the conversations are strikingly similar. While we can name similarities (marketplace pressures, expected downside to the economy and organizational distress), I’m more focused today on what tactical steps individuals can take in order to be in a better position when whatever challenges come.  There are two aspects that are relevant. First, and I’ve said this many times before, I believe that organizations have an absolute obligation to help their employees prepare for the market downturn and correction that experts are calling for. Secondly, that while that’s nice in theory, the reality is that the responsibility for preparing still comes down to you, the individual.  My time working in Executive Communications, Public Relations and Investor Relations during the financial crisis gave me a unique perspective and strong lessons in what good leadership and effective communication looked like during times of difficulty. It’s where I earned my “chops,” and these lessons inform my work today.  This week’s podcast outlines what executives did and did not do well during that difficult time. The successful executives were able to name and understand their multiple audiences; articulate value in a contextual way, and maintain a larger perspective that allowed them to make short-term decisions towards a longer-term vision. It was a tall order, and those who couldn’t do it well became, what I call, “victims of a down economy.”  Today, we see similar stresses, especially for individuals in corporate who are “feeling” the difficulty around the corner. They can read the news, yet are unsure or feel overwhelmed on where to begin.  While we can’t control when or how the next crash is coming, we know that one is guaranteed. And our focus shouldn’t be on when or how it comes, but rather stacking our deck so that we are in a better position than the masses when needed. This means taking the time to strengthen our network today, before the rest of the industry scrambles to do so. It means taking a short time to go through the exercise of understanding and being able to articulate our value in a meaningful way, and also understanding who our audiences are going to be.  More details on the podcast, and I encourage you to begin the work. Those who get started sooner will have a much easier transition through the next few years. Your Title Goes Here Your content goes here. Edit or remove this text inline or in the module Content settings. You can also style every aspect of this content in the module Design settings and even apply custom CSS to this text in the module Advanced settings. Click Here for an Unedited Transcript of the Podcast Welcome to bellwether. We’re gonna talk about similarities and processes and cyclical stuff. It’s all kind of fun, but it’s very, very relevant. What I wanna talk about today and what I’m going to talk about today. I wanna talk about similarities between now and 2007, which I’ve talked a little bit about in the past. I’m gonna talk about it again because it’s extremely relevant and every single one, every single one of my clients, I’m having a conversation in some way about this and this isn’t just relevant today. It’s gonna be relevant later. Everything is cyclical. We know about that, but I wanna chat about, uh, similarities between now and 2007. And when I say 2007, for those who may not, um, who may, it may not trigger particular memories, the same memories that I have 2007 was the lead up to the financial crisis and, and the downturn and, and all of that negative, uh, difficult time that, that people reference.Um, now I don’t wanna talk about similarities today in terms of investing, because that’s where most of it goes. When we talk about economy, we talk about how people can invest in different ways and prepare for it that way. I don’t wanna talk about that because this isn’t the form for that. What I, I do wanna talk about similarities between now and then I want to talk about what I learned back then, because what you may not know about me and my corporate career, I was working in executive communications, PR investor relations, business strategy, all that stuff in the financial industry during the financial crash. So I had a lot of exposure to executives who did things well and not. So I’m gonna talk about that, what they did well, and didn’t, and then I wanna talk about you as an individual, how you can set yourself up for, um, whatever it is that’s coming.So I will say two things right at the right at the top. Well, maybe three things, one, um, we know that business is cyclical. We know that it’s a process. So when we look at challenges that are coming, we could find similarities to the past and we make good decisions based on that data. That’s what we do. We take examples from what happened before, what happened? How is that relevant today? Let’s reflect, okay. How do we make decisions going forward? That informs our decisions today. Some of these cycles are extremely long. Like if you read the Ray Dalio books, he’s looking at ’em over centuries and, and everything else, some of them are much shorter, like market corrections and everything are every what, 10 years or so give or take 10 to 15 years. And that’s where we’re looking at ourselves now. Um, so that’s that two, I don’t wanna talk again.I don’t want to get into, um, investing right now because that’s, I just don’t want to do that. Right? Whatever, invest how you wanna invest. I’m not gonna tell you what’s right or wrong, but I want to talk about how you’re getting yourself ready personally, individually for this, because there’s a bigger picture than just how you’re investing, um, and trying to time the market. I’m not looking to time the market. That’s also stupid. Number three, I will say you as an individual. Well, you know, before I get to you as an individual, I wanna start everything right at the top. I have a belief. This is my number three. I have a belief that I’m all organizations have an absolute I’ve said this before. I’m gonna keep saying it. They have an absolute obligation to prepare their people for whatever change is coming. I’m talking to boardrooms right now.And these conversations are happening in, in every executive team is discussing it. This isn’t filtering down to the people in your organization. Yet they hear the experts talking about what’s coming. It is just, it’s not expensive to do this. It’s about telling them, you know, giving them insight into the decisions that are being made, but also giving them the skillset or ability to prepare for this on an individual basis. Um, one is the right thing to do. Uh, and two, it, it, it will build a loyalty, um, and is revamping your people strategy. And it’s setting yourself up for success later. So I won’t dive into that, but that is a firm belief of mine. If you are running an organization and you have not been doing this call me because I can, this is I have the plan. And the, the thing that we could structure this out, it’s a cascade.Every client is talking about this, but let’s get into number four because this is what I want to talk about today. You as an individual, right? It’s nice to think that the organization would have this obligation and do those things for you and, and take care of you and do all that stuff. Um, but ultimately most of them aren’t gonna do it. And that’s, that’s just a reality, right? We could, we could talk about the organization is supposed to be preparing you for all kinds of stuff and two-way loyalty and all kind of nonsense. Right? It’s great. In theory, it doesn’t happen. In reality, you, as an individual are solely responsible for preparing yourself for whatever happens in the next 12 to 24 months. Okay. You could blame people for what happened. You can blame people for whatever, but ultimately it’s up to you. And I’m gonna talk to you about that today.So we’re gonna talk first about similarities between now and 2007. I’m gonna tell you what the executives did well, and didn’t do well in 2007. And then I’m gonna wrap this up by what can you, as an individual take responsibility for what steps can you take to set yourself up? Uh, so that relatively against your peers and everybody else, you’re in a, a much better position to, to execute on whatever it is. You have to execute when, when things go haywire. So, um, we don’t know when, so let’s talk about similarities, um, between now and 2007. Um, I won’t get into to how it happens, but, but if we were to take just a big picture, look at now versus then the cycle, okay. We’re, we’re looking at the, the economic cycle without getting to very broad strokes. Um, there’s a debt bubble. Okay. We got it.Housing crisis back then. It’s credit today. Um, when we take a look at the buy now pay later stuff and, and all of that. And amongst the other things, money is cheap. There’s tons of money out there. Um, firms are taking hits, significant hits the economy. Like people are pulling back, they’re starting to feel it. They’re not spending money. It was financial back then. We’re seeing it’s already in technology. Technology firms have already been laying people off. Um, so there’s a lot of organizational distress that’s happening. Um, that a lot of employees are talking to me about. We feel it. We don’t know ...