Shark attack or recession – how to survive

The young teen was positioning a fishing pot for his father, swimming on a beautiful California morning some 200 yards from the Encinitas beach.  Suddenly, without warning, a 2,400 pound nightmare slammed into the 13-year-old, nearly engulfing his chest in its huge powerful teeth-lined mouth.

It was a typical attack by a Great White Shark, with the shark first seeking to stun or render helpless its prey. Miraculously, despite severe wounds, the young teen struggled to the surface and cried out for help. Equally miraculously, an off-duty police officer and a off-duty lifeguard were kayaking nearby. Both were highly trained in emergency procedures.

Seeing the boy in peril, they swiftly paddled over and hauled the severely injured teenager atop one of the kayaks. They immediately applied pressure to the boy’s wounds, who was now in critical condition. As they set out for the beach, the rescuer with the teenager felt a powerful thud at the back of his kayak.

The shark had come back.

The pair kept paddling, and the snark soon lost interest, swimming away. Within minutes, the pair had the boy on the beach and began emergency medical procedures. The teenager’s father had witnessed the rescue and had already called 911. A fully equipped helicopter from a major San Diego trauma center was already on its way.

Yes, there is good news

Considering that a few years ago this snark attack would have surely had a tragic ending, things turned out well. Only mere minutes elapsed between the actual attack and the beginning of emergency surgery at the Rady Children’s Hospital. The teenager recovered quickly, even asking for a donut within 48 hours of major surgery. He was soon released from the hospital and finished his recovery at home.

This incident had a high impact on my wife Jamie and me, as we were finishing up an Oceanside work/vacation trip in nearby Encinitas at the time of the attack. Jamie had left for an early morning walk on the nearby California beach, but she came back breathless. “There are news trucks everywhere,” she told me. As marketing and PR professionals, we both knew what the gathering of news trucks meant. So we both walked the few hundred feet to the beach where the attack had occurred a short time earlier. Our middle adult son had been surfing a few days earlier in the same exact area where the attack occurred. So we had a deep personal interest. Crews from every major and local network were on hand. Worried residents stood around, looking on.

We engaged with several of the crews as they looked for local color commentary of the attack. But the most interesting discussion was with a San Diego County sheriff, who was waiting for a news conference to begin. He was well-versed in shark attacks (which despite a rising frequency of sharks off the southern California coast, are rare).

What he had to say had remarkable parallels with business and organizational life, especially as rumors of an economic recession are ramping up.

Heed the warnings

A shark will sometimes deliberately bump into you before launching an attack. The effect apparently is intended to stun the potential prey or knock it off balance. The point? You often will have a brief early warning before a major incident launches. In the business or organizational world, this could come in form of a client or customer starting to distance oneself from a previously close relationship. Or it could be downward or stagnant motion from economic trend lines, warning of economic issues. Typical many warning signs appear before a downturn, which are painfully obvious in hindsight 20-20 analysis leter.

The point? Don’t be passive or panic. Be alert and ready to take deliberate action. As the insightful author of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds accurately wrote long ago about economic disasters, “Men, it has been well said, think in herds; it will be seen that they go mad in herds, while they only recover their senses slowly, and one by one.”

Don’t wait for the collective madness to begin before taking action.

Secure your network

The teenager survived in large measure because he had a network that he could rely on. He wasn’t in deep water, where rescue would have been difficult. His father was nearby, on the shore with others. When the attack occurred, they had the ability and resources to summon emergency expert help. What does your network look like? Are you on a first-name basis with your banker? Are you having at least one high-impact breakfast or lunch a week with a key influencer in your industry. Do you have positive relationships with key people who could throw you a lifeline if you unexpectedly found yourself in trouble, perhaps with a negative cash flow or a need to quickly adjust the operations of your company?

Take a pulse check now on the health of your critical network. It probably needs a tune-up, so now is the time to get busy!

Ensure that you’re in good health – especially your reputation

Experts said that the teenager survived in part because one, he was in strong physical health, and two, he had a great, positive, forward-looking attitude. Even after being attacked and stunned by a 2,400 pound adversary, the teenager never gave up. He struggled to the surface and despite being severely injured, summoned the strength to call for help.

What about your company? Do you focus on maintaining strong, positive cash flow? Do you have some reserves set aside? (including a line of credit which you may not need now, but will certainly require if your customers or clients get in a “slow-pay” 90-day fulfillment cycle in a recession). Most importantly, is your brand awareness punched up and active in your marketplace?  What about your reputation (including online)? If a recession does in fact move in, companies and organizations will be scrambling to recover from potential losses (or delays) in revenue. In times of crisis, people look for strong leaders who project real confidence. Now is the time to address these issues.

Achieve high buy-in

Additional thoughts include making sure that everyone is now on the same page as you. Are you communicating clearly, openly and transparently within your organization? Is everyone aligned with your company goals? Is there high buy-in?

What about broadening your service offering? Are there ways you can build out and legitimately offer services that are complementary or are force-multipliers in your space? Think about it.

You can survive a shark attack – and a recession! The time to take deliberate action is now.

By Michael Snyder, who has successfully survived (and prospered in) four recessions.