This is a series of articles from emails that we were sending out to clients and friends as the CV Crisis evolves. Hope it is helpful for others and also provides a historical context as we all reacted and learned about the seriousness of this virus.
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I grew up in California and was on a swim team from the time I was 7. Trips to the coast were a delight and with them came lessons about the strength and power of the ocean. One element you felt almost instantly once you were past ankle depth was the undertow which was managed without much difficulty. However, the more dangerous element that still leads to ocean drownings every week is the rip current which is frequently call a riptide.

The key thing we learned was that you could use a burst of energy with an undertow to get yourself to be able to stand and recover, but you could never beat a rip head on.

Why the ocean swimming lesson 10 weeks into a pandemic and a correlating economic shut down?
We have noticed many people, including ourselves, trying to sprint to safety and our misdiagnosis of the situation could be costing us valuable energy in what appears is going to be a much longer swim back to shore.

The rip takes you out past the breaking waves, into the deep water. Once you know you are in a rip you orient yourself to the shore, swim sideways (they are typically no more that 100 yards wide) and then can start to re-orient yourself to swim diagonally or directly back to the wave line. You still have a ton of swimming to do, you will be very tired when you get back, but you actually can make progress and survive.

The one two punch of the pandemic and recession is a substantial rip. Each week we get more bad news from a wide range of industries. It can be confusing but it shows just how intertwined our supply chains are and how finely tuned they had become. It seems odd that pigs would be slaughtered, why not just let them get bigger? Why is a lettuce crop getting tilled up? But both of these are viewed as a crop and if you are going to lose money, then you stop losing money as quickly as you can.

Here are our findings after another active week working.

You Can't Punch the Pandemic in the Mouth

Don’t look for the heroic kick save that always works in the movies. Save your energy and reorient your position to live to fight another day and take the measures that will allow you to survive.

Plan from the bottom up.

A good first measure is to build out plans on how your family and your business survive a Pandemic Period. This war is like any conflict, it never shows up where or when you thought it would. Enemies attack where you are weak and adapting to that blow is the first step. Our training needs to be in adapting and then preparing for the next unforeseen action. Part of that preparation is doing what we call C-B-A planning.

C-B-A planning was something that came out of the financial crisis of 2009, it is where you understand how things will look in reverse order. You plan to survive first, then improve and then optimize. It is not normal for most of us as we plan for everything working and often times we succeed.

However, in a pandemic period work the numbers and the choices out in your mind so that if and when we get another broadside attack adapting will be about implementing not deciding.

Help others with the eye of a Lifeguard

Start looking for how you can help others within your interests and strengths but make sure you have the energy allocated to do it. Another swimming lesson from my youth was from life guard training. Reach – Throw – Row – Go was the mantra for helping a struggling swimmer.

Part of the reason for this was that the last thing you wanted to be was a life preserver for a drowning person.

Endurance, Endurance, Endurance

Continue to practice the habits we wrote about from Colonel John Boyd’s OODA Loop and Admiral James Stockdale’s Paradox as you hone your endurance skills.

We all came into this Pandemic Period at different points in our lives and with big plans for the next 90 days, 9 months and even 9 years. It has brought some closer together which doesn’t make the news, it has driven others further apart which always makes the news, and it will leave its mark on all of us.
#onwardtogether

This is a series of articles from emails that we were sending out to clients and friends as the CV Crisis evolves. Hope it is helpful for others and also provides a historical context as we all reacted and learned about the seriousness of this virus.

The last 7 weeks have been intense, with health and economic fears hitting our midsections like Muhammed Ali punches. The loss of life has been an cruel lottery, everywhere in some places and seemingly nowhere in others. Job loss has been far easier to spot, its on every street corner and apart of every Zoom catch up call with friends.

Job loss doesn't kill you, but it can push some closer to poverty's edge and for others push out a retirement timeline, when those sands of time feel like they are slipping away. Both scenarios cause grief and grief works on humans like rust on metal, it never sleeps.

Three weeks ago we wrote about our new social and economic normal being in place until we get a Vaccine + 6 months and in those three weeks we have seen businesses adapt by severely cutting their spending to extend their cash runway. They are doing this because V+6 is so hard to peg and 24 months while easy to picture is hard to plan for. The image we came up with for this is when a sail boat is pointed directly into the wind, it can not tack and this is called being "Stuck in Irons" as the sails flap about making a ton of noise, while to boat goes nowhere. Is there a lot of noise around your family and business, but you aren't sure if you are going anywhere?

However a couple of things appear to be coming out of this period as well. The brutal truth is getting shared more, customers and vendors and channel partners have lost the ability to bluff and while the truth can hurt, it also can be a great teacher. As a leader of a family and a company you might ask, what did I learn, and what does it mean and the end of each day or week?

Your best customers identified themselves in the last 7 weeks and so did your worst.

Your best vendors identified themselves in the last 7 weeks and so did your worst.

Your best friends identified themselves in the last 7 weeks and so did your worst.

On the customer front, make a map of those best customers, there are others like them and you need to say hello right away and start the process of acquiring them immediately, the good news here is that you have more clarity on why you will be a good fit which should help in the awkward early stages.

On the vendor front, you probably learned how strong their balance sheet was, the more they freaked out, the worse off they probably were. Seek higher ground with better players in this space because you really have to expect more bad news in the future.

With your good friends, even if it is just one, pour into them with your compassion and empathy and allow them to do the same to you. We all need allies now.

Here are some thoughts on How to go from Stuck in Irons to Peering around the Pandemic Bend?

Airforce Colonel John Boyd was a world class fighter pilot and changed how our war planes were built in this country, his biography is worth the listen or read depending on your preference. Colonel Boyd also left behind a decision making frame work that is the standard for our military and might be of use to all when it comes to adapting.

The OODA loop stands for Oberve, Orient, Decide, Act and is born out of air to air combat training that earned Colonel Boyd the nickname (40 Second Boyd) because he would allow his combatant an advantage position on him and within 40 seconds would be in a position to kill them.

Most of us can now relate to feeling like we are in a disadvantaged position and maybe it is time to take a page from Colonel Boyd's book and run the OODA loop to help us Peer around the Pandemic Bend both from a family but also a work stand point.

Observe what is causing your discomfort of pain, measure the size and scope and do not hedge the size or seriousness of its power.

Orient yourself and your assets to the enemy. How can you adapt given what you have currently within reach?

Decide on action to take.

Act on that decision.

Reflect and run the loop again.

Much of the OODA loop training in the military is how to run the loop faster than your enemy, to get inside their OODA loop. Today's climate is perfect for taking that same point of view. Consider running a daily OODA loop for yourself, and family. Run a daily OODA loop for your work team. These simple questions will allow you to get to a brutal truth as quickly as possible which will allow you to adapt.

May appears to be a month where the country will tear itself apart at the seems as the battle for economic safety pits itself against our collective health. Our regional differences will be on display and their will be a few Gollum moments as the pursuit of "our precious" rings will get ugly.

Our aim in May is to work with those self identified best customers, vendors, and friends and improve our OODA loop skills as we push forward through the fog of this pandemic war. Call or email us if you need help.

#onwardtogether,

Drew