“I’m waiting for the recession to end.”

“I’ll be glad when things get back to normal.”

I hear these two statements or a slight variation thereof frequently.

I have two suggestions: first, don’t wait. I don’t know when the “recession” or economic doldrums will end and frankly I don’t want to depend on something I can’t control. Recover now. Do what needs to be done to improve your situation. Increase your effort doing those things that you know will improve your situation.

Second suggestion: get past “back to normal.” As I recently blogged, there is no “new normal” and whatever “normal” we encounter in the future will most likely be short lived. Make flexibility and agility your goal. Change as fast or faster than the conditions around you. Never become complacent and believe you’ve reached a period where vigilance and change are no longer necessary.

So what are you waiting for?

Can you crush an economic curve ball?

There is global instability in the financial markets, the U.S. faces the threat of another recession, unemployment is high and consumer confidence is low.

How are you doing in your business?

Mark Sanborn has insights that will help you keep hitting it out of the park despite the wicked curves balls you’re being thrown.

In just one year, Mark faced a life-threatening shockwave. Simultaneously, his business and investments took a serious hit.

Yet, Mark remains convinced this perfect storm of setbacks was the flashpoint of a lifetime. After decades of great success, he was acutely staged to deploy his ‘mastery of the unpredictable.’

Maybe life has pushed your face in the mud; while others around you were building monuments. Maybe you’ve said, “I’m doing everything right. I don’t deserve this. Why are they successful…and I’m not?”

The answer is elegant in its simplicity.  Your competitors are leveraging ‘the unpredictable.’

Vigilant managers expect unpredictability to pounce behind ever bend.  So, they vigorously apply what Mark found to be the six (often malnourished) principles that always insure victory.

Mark’s epiphany was, “setbacks can actually fuel your survival and prosperity”…in economic conditions that go Up, Down, and Sideways.

That’s why you need this presentation based on his book Up, Down or Sideways: How to Succeed When Times are Good, Bad or In Between. 

Sanborn shows your team how to prepare for unpredictability. He coaches you on how to inspire sane leadership during insane times.

Despite the cheerful claim that “we choose not to participate in the recession,” the reality is that your business and customers are affected by such an economic downturn. Mark can show you how to succeed in spite of such challenging conditions.

Up, Down, or Sideways is bursting with actionable ideas.

1.  Why “Best Practices” Are a Ticking Time Bomb. Learn how to find better and next practices.

2.  Focusing on the Only Two Ways Any Organization Can Grow. How to determine when you leaders (and their people) have stopped growing. If they aren’t growing, your business has no chance of growing either.

3.  Don’t Overthink “Metrics.” Only two interconnected metrics matter: (A) great people and (B) great results. You’ll learn how to consistently inspire both people and profits.

4.  How Customer/Client Loyalty Tactics Differ Between Vendors and Partners. You’ll learn what is necessary to build relationships that transition you from “vendor” to “partner.”

5.  How To Identify if Your Employees Are Wasting Your Money…and Their Time. You’ll leave this program knowing how to get your people to focus on their MVP (most valuable and profitable) activities.

6.  Learn The Economic Advantages of Practicing Gratitude. It doesn’t do much good be be grateful if you aren’t demonstrating the most crucial behaviors. You’ll learn the precise values great leaders always “model” to their employees, colleagues and customers.

PROGRAM NOTE: Mark can present this program to a mixed audience of managers and employees – or tailor it specifically to managers and top tier leaders.

Mark Sanborn is author of the bestselling books, The Fred Factor, and You Don’t Need a Title To Be a Leader. He is president of Sanborn and Associates, an idea studio dedicated to developing leaders in business and life. He is an in-demand speaker and consultant who has worked with more than 2400 clients, including Harley Davidson, Costco, Enterprise Rent-a-Car, FedEx, Hewlett Packard, KPMG, Morton’s of Chicago, New York Life, RE/MAX, ServiceMaster, Time Warner, Upsher-Smith, and The United States Air Force Academy. His website is www.marksanborn.com.

If you are cheered or encouraged by what you’re about to read, it will be in an odd sort of way.

Maybe you can relate so Steve. He’s the CEO of a mid-sized business that has seen revenues hammered by the recession. He and his team have done careful analysis, consulted with industry experts and taken dramatic measures. In short, they’re doing everything right.

And it isn’t working.

They haven’t seen revenues rebound like they’d expected. Their best efforts haven’t saved the accounts they’d hoped to save.

Steve and has team is discouraged and looking for answers.

The best answer I can offer: there are no guarantees.

Most managers and leads live with a positive optimism that if they just do everything “right,” things will work out. Often they do. Sometimes they don’t.

All of us can think of times in our lives when our best analysis and decision backfired. Just as we benefit from dumb luck, so can we suffer from what I’ve come to call “informed misfortune.” Informed misfortune reminds us that even when good information is acted on well there are no guarantees of the results.

Feeling encouraged? I didn’t think so, but perhaps you should reflect on what I’ve just shared. Deep down, you already knew it to be true, that there are times when your best efforts don’t create the results they should. Unless you are living in deep denial–or very young–you already know there are no guarantees.

That doesn’t mean we should quit trying to think and be and do our best. It does mean that we shouldn’t beat  up on ourselves when doing our best isn’t enough. The encouragement to be found is a realistic assessment of life, and the acceptance that there are forces bigger and more powerful than ourselves and our organizations that may in the end have the last say.

The belief that doing everything right will assure success is borderline delusional. Because doing things right often does create success, we want to extrapolate that into the belief that it will always create success. And there are times when it won’t.

Steve and his team aren’t giving up. They aren’t prospering as they thought they might, but they’re surviving. The good news is that they don’t waste too much time getting existential about why doing everything right didn’t work. Instead, they focus on what they should keep doing despite that.

This realization–this “no guarantees” reality–may be the only thing that will ultimately keep you sane during difficult times.

1. Don’t make promises you can’t keep. One of the quickest credibility destroyers is to be forced to make layoffs after you promised earlier that they wouldn’t happen.

2. If you don’t know, say so. There is more credibility in honesty than speculation.

3. Keep looking for opportunities. They’re still there, but harder to see given the current economic climate.

4. Re-recruit top talent. Underperformers hunker down in a tough job market; top talent realizes they still have options. Take care of your peak performers.

5. Be encouraging but avoid “happy talk.” The latter is naive and doesn’t recognize the real difficulties people are facing. Encouragement is a vote of confidence in the ability of your team to face the challenges successfully and be resilient.

6. Become rigorous in the pursuit of information. Much of what passes as news is nothing more than popular opinion. Dig deeper than others and qualify the information you find.

7. Be shrewd in budget cuts. Training and advertising are usually the first to go during a recession; they also create a bigger return on investment during a recession. “Common knowledge” is often an oxymoron when it comes to making cutbacks.

8. Keep playing to win. Many have become completely defensive and are simply playing not to lose.