The best year ever

The best year ever

We recently conducted a poll on this blog, the results of which are below:

What's your outlook for your business for 2009?

Best year ever - 53%
Similar to 2008 - 15%
Somewhat worse than 2008 - 23%
Catastrophic - 7%

As the eternal optimists, we at Growth Facilitators are happy to see that over 50% of those who responded agreed with the GF team that 2009 will be the best year ever for their organization. I wondered about this level of optimism - is it blind faith and hope, denial of reality, ostrich head in the sand type of thinking that simply deludes us into believing this? Or is there something more at work here that is giving us this hopeful energy?

I received an insight last night in an e-mail from a treasured client (and all our clients are treasured and loved by Growth Facilitators). In her e-mail my client was updating me on the steps they have taken over the past two months to deal with the economic crisis. They have reorganized, released some people, cut unnecessary expenses. In short, they have taken the steps to streamline their business that they know they should have taken, but were able to delay and procrastinate about, the "good times" being a great mask for taking action. When business is thriving and revenues are growing, it's so easy to say "tomorrow". What the current crisis is forcing us to say is "NOW"!

What I observe from my client’s e-mail is that taking the action was a lot easier than they thought it would be, and has proceeded relatively smoothly, with results far sooner than they expected. Also with some unexpected results - my client noted that "The conversation at meetings has really become more productive" and "Interestingly we've never had such a smooth running Christmas before". No wonder she started her e-mail with "It will be a wonderful New Year".

And that’s the real truth of the matter - whatever we declare 2009 to be, it will be. If we declare that 2009 will be the best year ever for our organizations, we will take decisions and actions that are in line with this. If we believe that 2009 will be catastrophic for our organizationa, we will take decisions are actions that are in line with this.

In Hamlet Act 2, Scene 2, Shakespeare wrote:

Hamlet: What have you, my good friends, deserv'd at the hands of Fortune, that she sends you to prison hither?

Guildenstern: Prison, my lord?

Hamlet: Denmark's a prison.

Rosencrantz: Then is the world one.

Hamlet: A goodly one, in which there are many confines, wards, and dungeons, Denmark being one o' th' worst.

Rosencrantz: We think not so, my lord.

Hamlet: Why then 'tis none to you; for there is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so. To me it is a prison.

We can decide right now what 2009 will be - and what it will be has nothing to do with the external environment, and everything to with the "thinking that makes it so".