The Resilient Entrepreneur, Edition #61
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Hi there
I hope you had a great week!
Here are the topics in today's edition:
- Never Waste a Good Crisis: Why Going Back to Normal is a Mistake
- Behind the Hustle: The Entrepreneur My Family Sees
Please reach out if you have comments, questions, or suggestions for articles!
Talk soon š
Tom
KickKerK
CRISIS MANAGEMENT FOR RESILIENT ENTREPRENEURS
Never Waste a Good Crisis: Why Going Back to Normal is a Mistake
The goal of crisis management isnāt resilience. Itās reinvention.
In 1666, the Great Fire of London raged for days, destroying large parts of the city. Historic accounts cite various reasons why the fire raged so long and why it was finally defeated.
Reasons include delayed decisions to create effective fire breaks by the city leadership, conflicts between the city leadership and The Crown, as well as environmental impacts such as changes in winds.
This all smells of crisis, and not of emergency. More on this later.
After the fire, different opinions on rebuilding the city emerged. The Crown suggested radical restoration plans, but instead, much of the old street plan was recreated in the new city.
Nevertheless, the reconstruction along the old street plan brought improvements in hygiene and fire safety: Streets became wider, wharves along the Thames more open and accessible, and, most importantly, new buildings were constructed of brick and stone instead of wood.
Last but not least, rumor has it that the Great Fire of 1666 saved lives in the long run by burning down so much unsanitary housing with their plague-transmitting rats and fleas. After 80,000 deaths in 1665 and the Great Fire of 1666, London never saw a plague epidemic again.
Nothing cleans like a fire.
Emergencies vs. Crises
Whatās the difference between an emergency and a crisis?
An emergency is a situation of extreme time pressure and uncertainty, triggered by a surprising event. The prototype of any emergency is a fire. You can react to a fire outbreak by working through previously prepared checklists: Call the fire brigades. Close the windows. Donāt use the elevators. Evacuate the building.
A crisis, on the other hand, might require new solutions you cannot instruct and train for before the crisis hits. Returning to the Great Fire of London, who would have thought that a leadership contest between The Crown and the city leadership would prevent the timely creation of fire breaks, which was the state-of-the-art technique to fight city fires at the time? And who would have thought that a favorable change in wind strength was the main reason to ultimately win the fight against the fire?
Crises can unfold like a game of dominoes. Unlike the real game, you never see all the dominoes in a crisis and all the possible causes of why the first domino falls. Thatās why you can only create new solutions during the crisis, and you could never have thought of them before the crisis.
Never Waste a Good Crisis
Itās unclear whether Winston Churchill ever used the quotation ānever waste a good crisisā. If he did, it would surely have been for a good reason, as Winston Churchill lived through many crises during his lifetime.
Letās translate this quotation to our current times. No matter if we are talking about Donald Trumpās tariffs, Vladimir Putinās attack against Ukraine, or Xi Jinpingās constant threats to invade Taiwan, all these crises have changed or will change the world for good.
Whenever a crisis hits, donāt waste your time and energy complaining about how unlucky you are or how much damage the crisis does to you.
Use your time and energy to make the best of the crisis. Bring everything to the table, question every aspect of the status quo. Have the courage to change things fundamentally; there isnāt a better change agent than a crisis.
Returning to Status Quo: Really?
All the world speaks about resilience. In crisis management terms, resilient organizations are able to return to the status quo as quickly as possible after a crisis hits.
But do you really want to return to the status quo? Remember that the crisis probably hit you because the status quo wasnāt as optimal as it seemed.
Nassim Nicholas Taleb speaks of antifragile organizations. Those organizations rise out of a crisis much stronger than they were before.
Letās return to the Great Fire of London. The city emerged stronger after the 1666 fire than it was before. No more plague epidemics, wider roads, new wharves, and stone buildings instead of wooden buildings.
What a fruitful crisis this Great Fire of London was. Never waste a good crisis.
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INSPIRATION FOR RESILIENT ENTREPRENEURS
Behind the Hustle: The Entrepreneur My Family Sees
The parts of startup life you wonāt see on social media.
Iām an entrepreneur. I work hard, play hard, and post on social media about my successes and the attractive people I meet in entrepreneurial high society.
Iām a father of three children. My family is my true strength in life, and I get my energy from spending time with them. There is not a single day without a happy family shot on social media. The kids are always nicely dressed, their faces pixelated, of course.
Wait, no.
Iām an entrepreneur. I work hard, I struggle over and over again, and you normally donāt hear anything about those struggles outside my founding team, my family, and my inner circle of friends.
Iām a father of three children. I am just coming home from the office, and all hell is breaking loose because the three kids all want that same spoon, and itās unfair that they canāt have it all.
Iām getting up early one Saturday morning to finish some of that unfinished work, and I hear that distinctive sound of somebody vomiting. The day certainly wonāt change for the better now.
Hm, entrepreneurial reality seems to contrast with entrepreneurial clout on social media.
Most articles on entrepreneurship are written by entrepreneurs, not their families. Let me try to change the perspective from mine to the perspective of my family (full disclosure: I wrote this, not my family!).
1. Dad is always working
As an entrepreneur, there is always more to do than you have time for. Nothing is perfect, everything is urgent, so an entrepreneurās task list is always full.
Furthermore, entrepreneurs build something out of nothing, which involves a lot of trial and error: Just get started, without thinking too much about what could go wrong. When things go wrong (which they eventually will), you adjust your approach to the problem, and you retry a second, third, fourth time. Accepting to do things twice is one of my core principles in entrepreneurship. But doing things twice takes twice the amount of time.
Your family doesnāt necessarily understand this approach. To them, it might look like Dad is always working ā after dinner, on Sunday morning when they wake up.
2. Work is more important than us
Many times in my career, I said no to my kids to play cards after dinner, because I had to attend a call with some potential partners or clients in the United States.
Instead of sitting on the couch and drinking wine with my spouse, I spent countless evenings in front of the computer, working on tech issues, financial plans, and other things that require undisturbed concentration.
Last year, I even had to skip the Easter festivities with my family because I had to attend an RFP presentation in Southeast Asia on Monday morning after Easter. And as a follow-up to this trip, I had to answer several early-morning calls from that prospective customer in Southeast Asia during the holidays I spent in the mountains with my daughter.
Your family might think that work is more important to you than they are. Personally speaking, thatās not true. But as an entrepreneur, if work is not getting done, you canāt write invoices, you wonāt get your salary, and you wonāt be able to put food on the table. Work is not more important than the family, but work is important for the family.
3. Plans change constantly
I have been working in the aviation industry since a very long time, so naturally I know many pilots. Before I was an entrepreneur, I could relate to their complaints that their life was unpredictable until the schedule for the next month became available on the 22nd.
Ever since I started being an entrepreneur, I cannot relate to their complaints anymore. My life is unpredictable all the time. On-site meetings are scheduled at the last minute, irrespective of the country or the time zone. Customer urgencies pop up unexpectedly, no matter if you have scheduled a night out with your wife or if there is a concert in your kidsā school.
Your spouse and kids will most probably ask themselves why your plans change all the time, even though you insist on calendar invites for all family-related events.
Letās look at the bright side. When I was a kid, my fatherās plans often changed for business reasons, and there were many occasions when holidays were canceled at short notice, or we left for holidays without my father. In my case, I donāt cancel holidays, but I always take the computer with me so that I can take the odd call at odd times to keep family and company in balance.
4. Everyone is an idiot
As an entrepreneur, I sometimes have what I call shit days: Nothing works out the way you planned it, everything takes much longer than you expected, and instead of clearing your workload, everybody deposes their own little problems on your desk.
When Iām having a shit day, my family feels it, too (so do my co-founders). Either Iām in a bad mood over dinner, or I tell my spouse and kids in all openness what idiotic things and idiotic people I had to deal with all day long. Itās the names of those idiotic people that my kids remember and repeat at the most inconvenient occasions somewhen down the road.
To be fair, Iām not just sharing my bad mood with my family, but also my good mood. When the day went well and we made some progress in the company, my family feels that at the dinner table, too. Iāv heard my kids say āDad is in a good mood todayā many times in the past.
Conclusion
You canāt be a successful entrepreneur without your familyās support. Most of the time, the support is implicit, as itās hard for spouses and kids to help with the workload youāre facing in your company. I can only do what I do because I donāt have to put in time and energy into arguments on why work takes so long, why plans change all the time, or why I am angry because of a person my family has never met.
So you might ask yourselves: āWhy on earth would somebody ever start a company if it is such a struggle?ā
My honest answer: I donāt know. Either you have that inner desire to build something out of nothing and accept the hardships that come with it, or you choose a more comfortable life.
Doubtlessly, this way of life will leave traces with your kids and spouse ā good ones and bad ones.
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About Me
Growing a company š in uncertain times š„š§Ø is like running a marathonāit demands grit, strategy, and resilience.
As a tech entrepreneur š», active reserve officer šŖ, and father of three š©š¦š¦, I share practical insights and experience on entrepreneurship and resilience in The Resilient Entrepreneur, my weekly newsletter.
When I'm not solving problems, I recharge and find inspiration in the breathtaking mountains šļø around Zermatt šØš.
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