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Times They Are A Changing.

Guest post by: Kevin Clark

Article Overview: You can pretty much talk your way into recession or out of it into boom times. Especially when your actions follow your speech.

Times They Are A Changing.

I am sure you have had one of those experiences where you were trying to find a solution to a problem and an apparently quite unrelated thing happened right in front of you... and there it was... the solution you were looking for. Don't you just enjoy it when that happens?

I had one of those recently; I was pondering the current economic situation, mostly fueled by some really bad service. The manager of the place was complaining about how tough things were, while all I was able to get hold of was how bad the service was. In my mind there was a direct causal link. In other words bad service equals bad times. In all fairness the economic situation has had detrimental effects for many organizations and individuals. But I can't help but wonder if we don't play along with a kind of "well things are bad I'll throw my hands in the air" syndrome.

If I were to make the identical causal link to another restaurant I popped into the other day I would come up with a very different answer. We had a really great meal, in fact my wife had her favorite meal and, in her opinion, it was the best version of the meal she had eaten in that particular restaurant, and she could tell me very precisely why it was so. When I asked the owner how he had experience the recession, his response was "recession... what recession?" He has not been affected in the least. So what is the difference? I am sure there is much persuasion in the comments made by our children... "That was nice can we go there again?"

For most of us, we may want something a little more scientific than the comments of a seven year old, as an explanation to world economics, although, that may well have us going in the right direction. I had been considering the classic economic theory, which states that things will work in cycles, and wondered when this cycle would be turning. I pondered the whole thing of supply and demand. I gave some thought to the difference quality and price makes. At that point I came to the conclusion I need a break as I might not solve all the worlds problems in one sitting.

So as to clear my mind I dusted off my guitar which, I might add, I have not played in about 25 years. When I tried to strum out a tune I struck a blank trying to think of a song... any song that I could remember. Needless to say, I then went and scratched out an old music file. That was a bit of a time warp. Now you need to remember the music is about 30 years old and of course I found some Bob Dylan, and of course... Times They Are a Changing.

And right there I had one of those links to an answer I was looking for from a much unexpected source. All this economic mess - well it's happened. Are we going to find any meaningful answers? Probably not. All we can do now is create the a path, we can bleat and perpetuate the economic down cycle or we can speak the version we want out of the dust. "If you want to change your organizations culture... change your language". Well, here is the corollary... if you want to change your circumstances, you had better change your language.

Bob Dylan put it this way... Your old road is rapidly agin', Please get out of the new one if you can't lend a hand, for times they are a changin'. Allow me to say that my way: this road is at an end, it's time to create a new one, don't go and get on someone else road - create our own, a brand new one.

The dry times are over. They are if you want them to be. Now speak the language of your new life.

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Article Tags: actions follow speech, into boom times, into recession



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