The world has been in chaotic waves, which doesn’t help any business to grow. Beneath the surface, businesses are also going through what I refer as movements. “Movement” is a negative word in my dictionary. It means it deliberately sets up a route with no tomorrow without telling people that ending.
Most of us might get under the movements by accident. However, it gets clearer to me everyday that, some of them are intentional. For instance, if you are going to run out of money soon, you might want to save some money. But instead you go for a costly adventure which in the end costs your last bit of savings. If this happens in the corporate or country level, this is what I refer as a “movement”.
Why and who sets up such path?
It’s reasonable to ask why anyone wants to setup such suicidal path. By looking at the history, it happened all the time, especially at the end of any kingdom.
In a chaotic situation, people tend to not focus on the requirements of their job any more. Instead they focus more on whether they’ll keep their current position. Thus the goal of the decision maker has entirely changed. Of course this doesn’t just happen to the decision maker only. The decision can cascade through the hierarchy quickly and gets implemented quickly because there’re many people had their goals changed as well, or shall I say, realigned as well. This isn’t the old goal any more.
I guess this is part of their survival plans. They of course has not set it up to upset you, but because the shift of the goal, it will impact the company path, drastically change it in a sneaky way without announcing their intentions. Their real incentives will never been exposed to the public, thus saving their images and increasing the chance of the fulfillment of their goals.
They sometime pull it off with this movement. But more than the half cases, they get punished heavily in the end, along with all the people involved.
Shall I follow that path?
As for individuals like us, we are given three options:
- either go with it
- or go against it
- or something in the middle
You can follow the path, but since you already identified it’s a movement, you know you are going to get hurt; so you should work for some type of insurance, for example, getting out of it quickly.
You can go against it, but the cost is heavy as I already mentioned. The fight with someone who want to survive normally isn’t going to be pretty scene.
You can meet in the middle by not criticizing it but not doing it completely either. Most of time you will be in that situation. However this also carries a cost, because you already know your ending, it’s hard not to act accordingly.
So what’s the best way?
From the way that I see how to minimize the risk, the minimum you should do is to stay away from it, let it be a movement or policy. You are not going to favor it or implement it. Even you do it, you need to make it clear you are not going to take the fall for it. But the best way is to not touch it at the first place.
If you choose this path, maybe you should also consider get out of it entirely. The reason is that, when the things backfire, your chance of survival is slim. Remember if you were under a wave, your speed of swimming isn’t fast enough to get you out of the situation. Don’t pretend you are smart, it’s nonsense and irrelevant here. If you really think you are smart, don’t start it.
Conclusion
Say no to the movement, especially when you know it’s going to hurt you badly in the end. Behind the scene, consider getting out of it as soon as possible. Your risk and gain ratio is extremely high with almost no sight of margin. Getting out of it today is my survival plan.
