Credit crunch takes attitude

With any change there are always fresh prospects and opportunities that emerge. POLLYANNA LENKIC

By Pollyanna Lenkic

It’s great to be back in Melbourne after a break in London visiting friends and family. The main topic of conversation in London right now is focused on the current “credit crunch”.

It dominates conversations, screams from newspaper headlines, and everyone from the cab drivers to academics is debating the impact that this will have over the coming years ahead.

It was interesting to hear the differing perspectives of the current financial climate. Some of the people I met up with were excited about the opportunities they could create and how they would adapt their services and marketing to match the business climate and mood.

Others were exploring breaking into emerging markets in developing economies, and then there were those who are rebranding for the needs of the market right now and finding opportunities by identifying what they felt were the emerging needs of businesses. All were re-evaluating their positions, both financial and professional.

People are being forced to think differently; for example, the safety of savings is now in question and as a result people were exploring splitting up their savings into £50,000 deposits in different banks (currently the British Government only guarantees £50,000 of savings).

The Economic News reported that British investors have reportedly been switching their savings from British banks to Irish banks in order to take advantage of the Irish Government’s decision to guarantee all the deposits and debts of its six largest lenders.

So what does all this mean to us? What can we glean from what is happening overseas? How will it affect us?

For me, I am always struck by the acceptance that Londoners have of recession. Of course many business owners are worried about what the future holds for them and their businesses, and yet there was an optimism and acceptance from a lot of the people I spoke to.

“It’s a cycle that we have experienced in some form before” was the comment from many of the people I spoke to. I couldn’t help but wonder what impact this has on how they survive and thrive in a changing world.

Our world is constantly changing, and changing fast. What we held as safe or true may no longer be. Yet as with any change there are always fresh prospects and opportunities that emerge.

How do we equip ourselves and manage the changing climate around us? We can do little to change the climate, we can however manage how we operate, create and function while experiencing change.

• How do you function while experiencing change?
• What are you paying attention to right now?
• Is it what you need to be paying attention to?

I encourage you to take some time to observe where you are right now and to reflect on what this means to you.

I was referred to a book call Presence, which is an intimate look at the development of a new theory about change and learning, by Peter Senge, C Otto Scharmer, Joseph Jaworski and Betty Sue Flowers. They explored the nature of transformational change – how it arises, and the fresh possibilities it offers a world dangerously out of balance.

I am eagerly awaiting my copy to further explore their theories and concepts.

Pollyanna Lenkic is the founder of Perspectives Coaching, an Australian based coaching and training company. She is an experienced facilitator, certified coach and a certified practitioner of NLP. In 1990 she co-founded a specialist IT recruitment consultancy in London, which grew to employ 18 people and turnover £11 million ($27 million). This blog is about the mistakes she made and the lessons she learned building a business the first time round and how to do it better second time round. For more information go to www.perspectivescoaching.com.au

For more Second Time Around, click here.