The Chill Factor

With unrelenting economic pressure in the news daily, organisational consideration has to be given to encouraging management to maintain sound decision making. Without constructive support and endorsement of management through these tough times, the Catch-22 scenario will play out and industry will suffer further.

Harsh predictions indeed from Carol Mote, founder of Verdant Futures, who refers to our human instinct to duck for cover and play safe in tough times as being the 'last thing we should be doing'. We need to remember that organisations are always in a growth or a decline phase – the difference is arguably the quality of decision making which can enhance growth and turnaround decline. If managers are fearful for their own jobs, without care and direct intervention, their capability can be frozen.

Carol Mote outlines how emotional intelligence plays a big part in the motivation and mobilisation of a workforce. Organisations recognise the need to be pro-active in planning their way through their financial challenges and this may well require a recalibration of resources and approach. Looking after individuals as these plans move from strategic decision making to operational transformation, will ensure that each employee maintains commitment, as they are required to do, for the organisation to pull through.

Mote analyses some of the dilemmas management will be confronting and highlights ways forward - according to Mote some managers are at present hiding their talents in a place that feels safe, rather than engaging in what seems a cold and unwelcoming environment. Rather than freezing with fear, it would be constructive to see management thriving in the midst of potential chaos. Not that it is straightforward to make such a shift change, however endorsed with a maturity of understanding their own capability and a surety of corporate purpose, it is certainly liberating. Carol Mote is MD of www.verdantfutures.com