A cautionary tale for you.

Can you open the spigot?

Entering the last downturn I was working with one of the ENR Top 50 Subcontractors. As projects were cancelled and delayed we talked budgets and the implications for leader development.

The comment from the VP of People has stuck with me.

He said, “After 9/11 we shut everything down to save cash. But when the recovery came, we needed people, we opened the spigot and nothing came out. We are not going to let that happen to us again.”

We kept training and they were well positioned to take advantage of opportunities in the recovery. I talked to that same VP the other day and the thought-process is the same. “We know we will work off some backlog in the next few months, and things may be a bit slower later this year/early next year. That is when we will do even more training. We know a recovery will come and we will be ready for it.”

My question to you, my loyal reader, will you be ready too or will you be eclipsed by firms who are?

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This entry was posted on Wednesday, May 13th, 2020 at 7:08 pm and is filed under Change, Excellence, Leadership. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.