Stages – the most powerful business cycle model I know, see this post for more on Stages and also “Jump”
I hope this post gives you pause to look at the cycles in your own life and work and which ones you can then choose to work with.
Today I feel great, physically, mentally, and energetically, I simply feel great. Today is also the final day of my first (of eight) 21-day chemotherapy cycles. In this case, correlation most definitely equals causation, ie I feel great because I am on day 21. Each cycle is 14 days of strong chemo tablets, then 7 days of rest from the tablets, then it restarts.
In three weeks’ time, I also have one of my sons visiting the UK for a while, so we are looking ahead to what and when we can plan to do things. The last few days of my next cycle will be just as he arrives, so have blocked out the diary to do stuff with him. He then heads off elsewhere for ten days to see friends and family elsewhere, then will come back for a week. However, that week I will be at the lowest ebb of the cycle, where the impact of the drugs will be at the highest level, so we are not planning for us to do much together at all, other than hanging out a bit in the house.
I am doing what I can to work with these cycles, being aware of them and going with their flow. In the business world and the world of economics, we also see cycles, yet all too often I see business leaders who could do so much more to think and plan ahead for cycles and their impact.
A few that come to mind, apologies for the lengthy examples and storytelling, I got into the flow and have much to say on this! :
- Summer. A simple one, but if you are looking at strategic planning and thinking, don’t try to do it (in the Northern Hemisphere) in the middle of summer, particularly in countries with limited warm months (Canada, I’m looking at you, particularly the GTA), as a) people take their vacation then so you can’t get them together to meet, and b) linked to that, they will not want to take on any more than their regular day to day requirements as they want to make the most of the warmer months.
- Busy Season. Almost every business has busy and quiet times of the year, even if when you ask (and I always do) they say they don’t. For some businesses (eg Audit firms) have always known this and are great at planning around this, including everything from when people take vacations, to when CPD training, strategic planning etc are done (ie at other times). Linked to summer, some of the larger firms even cut down to a four day week in the middle of summer (their “low season”) to give some balance to their people. If you are a business that says “we don’t have busy times, we are busy all the time”, then I encourage you to delve deeper and look at what makes you busy in different ways at different times of the year. One tip, don’t stress about routine admin tasks that you don’t get to when you are busy serving clients or delivering your products, simply look to when in the year you will have quieter periods and make plans to do that work then. For me, I have always done much of my annual admin in the second half of December as that is a quieter period for me for client work, but I would never do any admin at the start of the year as that is one of my busiest periods when people want to talk about their thoughts and ideas and plans for the new year.
- Economic Cycles. Whenever there is a recession more businesses get into distress. In 2020 and early 2021 in the UK, though, the government propped up businesses to keep the economy afloat during the pandemic. At that time I worked with a firm of business recovery specialists who had the foresight to see that, eventually, this support would end and, to paraphrase Warren Buffett, when the tide went out many would be left stranded. In service of the business community, during that period of the economy being artificially propped up to share their foresight as well as their expert advice on what to do businesses could keep swimming afterwards. At that time the level of new client activity for their own business was (naturally) low, but they chose to invest heavily so as to be ready to support clients when the eventual rush of distressed businesses started to contact them. This was a highly predictable cycle, yet it took having both foresight and bravery to invest in a future cycle at a time when business was slow.
- Business Cycles. My (so far) 35-year career has given me many things, one of which is the ability to recognise patterns. One of those is that so much of business goes in cycles. I’ve noted the Stages model above, though this one is a linear and forward-moving model of the stage of the business lifecycle from start-up to advanced growth. Many cycles, though, are circular, they repeat, so it behoves leaders to recognise them and their signs and so plan ahead for them. However, once again, so many leaders are so busy with the day to day they don’t stop to recognise the signs. If they do, however, they can be preparing for the next cyclical change whilst still addressing the current one. For example, at one point in such a cycle, a business may find that sales and margins are down, so they will get into cost-cutting mode, with pressure put on managers to maintain margins and so profitability, through efficiency measures. However, as sales and margins improve, that emphasis may fade, with the focus being on different areas, with one outcome often being that budgets for areas that were cut before (eg employee benefits and development) build up again. Leaders with foresight will always be aware of these cycles and that what goes up must come down, so communicating and planning ahead for inevitable pressure for budget cuts can lead to smoother transitions and less damaging impact.