Every Monday, I talk to business owners in our Karibik Rebellen community. People who carry responsibility, make decisions and try every day to keep their businesses running. And sometimes, after these conversations, I think: My goodness, how much can land on someone’s desk at once?
Employees are off sick. Expectations keep rising. Customers postpone orders, suddenly have no budget left or want to pay significantly less for the same service. Meanwhile, the company’s own costs keep climbing. A decision that seemed perfectly reasonable yesterday may need rethinking today.
And in the middle of it all is a business owner who is supposed to stand in front of the team on Monday morning and give them a sense of direction. What do you say? “Folks, I have no idea what next week will bring either. But have a lovely Monday!” At least it would be honest. Probably not quite what the team was hoping to hear, though. 😉
So they keep going. Having conversations, running the numbers, making plans, looking for solutions. And when they finally put one fire out in the evening, three more are waiting the next morning.
Sometimes I wonder when these people ever get a chance to enjoy what they have already achieved.
Because there is something else I hear in all these conversations: Many of these business owners have wonderful people on board. Employees who think ahead, step in and give their best every day. And yet they can feel the energy slowly fading. What particularly concerns me is something that never appears in an annual report.
The way we treat one another is changing.
Long-standing customer relationships suddenly turn into price negotiations. Instead of asking together, “How can we make this work?”, we increasingly find ourselves asking who will have to cover the extra costs.
And sometimes I feel that, among all the numbers, we forget there are people on both sides trying to make the best of their situation.
Of course a business owner has to do the maths. Of course they need a sound strategy. And sometimes difficult decisions are unavoidable.
But perhaps now, more than ever, it is worth taking another look at the people we want to get through all this with. The employee who has been covering for others for weeks. The manager who has no idea how to fill the next staff rota. And the customer who may have just as little certainty to plan with as we do.
Not to put a positive spin on every problem. But to make sure that, amid all these challenges, we do not also lose the very thing that turns a company into a team.
Our trust in one another.
LOOK AGAIN. Take another look.
