Are you toast? And if so, what are you doing about it?

For 8 years I have studied business fundamentals with The Aji Network. The learning from this course has helped The Jackson Group experience steady and substantial growth. Our clients have increased in number and value, the team has expanded in talent and our colleagues seek our help and cooperation. Now we are coping with the recession by refining services, managing costs and investing in tools and the knowledge to use them – all to help our clients and ourselves achieve our respective objectives and continue to thrive. I attribute our success, and trust our future, to the learning that comes from the association with The Aji Network.

Aji Network founder, Toby Hecht, recently published a paper titled Reading-the-Economy: Interpretations and Strategies for Fulfilling Ambitions. When I read this paper I was compelled to add my voice to his about the serious problems that Americans face as a result of not preparing for the future; for “disrespecting,” as Toby would say, the fundamental realities of the marketplace. I recommend his paper as an opportunity to learn how to take care of your own situation in this recession and avoid the trap that so many Americans are in today.

What trap is that, you ask? Toby claims in “Reading-the-Economy” that the recession displays for us how people ‘squander’ their opportunities to earn, save and invest adequately to take care of themselves while working and suffer as a result in their retirement. He observes that millions of people (70M Baby Boomers, in particular) have foolishly spent their careers working hard, spending freely, saving little and borrowing heavily while they lived for the moment at the cost of their dignity and capacity to take care of the basics of life in their old age. Toby has been warning students for years that “incomes, savings and investments are far too low while spending and borrowing are far too high” and he poses that most of us have been duped and tranquilized by journalists, entertainers and politicians whose messages have been motivated by the need to sell advertising or get elected. Now there are millions of Americans who have too little saved or invested to support themselves through retirement – the 20-30 years that they will no longer be able to work and will need care and support (food, housing and healthcare) from programs and institutions that are as broke as they are.

This is not a pretty picture. The economic recession shines a clear, cold light on the problem bringing us increasing unemployment, homelessness, bankruptcies and rolling bailouts. The marketplace demonstrates its fundamental mechanics, including – you don’t get to borrow more money just because you need it, you can’t replace a 40% loss in equity without the “time” for compound interest to grow your money again, and, most of all, you can’t fix these problems or support yourself to live well except by out-performing the marketplace with knowledge, strategy and superior competitive action – the key to making money!

Hard working people are good a decent and they are also a-dime-a-dozen. They are the ones who have denied the imperative for learning and becoming expert with new knowledge and we will observe the harsh reality of that mistake for some time to come. The unfolding crisis and the consequences of people losing their homes, their cars, their healthcare and their dignity will be the vivid reminder of what we risk when we fail to learn and develop our personal value in the marketplace.

Aji Network students practice “Reading-the-World” to 1) plan action for coping with threats, 2) discover new obligations that matter to us (those things we do to avoid problems or fulfill our promises), and 3) observe and take advantage of new opportunities that will help or improve our lives. We do this practice out of “respect” for the marketplace. After this recession there will be the inevitable expansion and all of us must prepare now for the new marketplace that we will live in when that happens.

As the marketplace evolves old products and services are abandoned and we must invent new ones. We must not be gripped by the recession, but use its lessons to develop new ways to help our customers. We must be responsible for producing our own new value in the marketplace. Toby claims that through the strategic use of computer-driven tools we can be more effective at developing competitive advantage – and competitive knowledge is the source of power for that invention. We must drop the common and obvious work that is priced on the margin and pay attention to proven superior offers of help. The new power for business people is in communication, coordination of action and production – all of which are augmented with the knowledge to use computer-driven tools effectively. This is where design and innovation will trump hard work and task-oriented processes and enable us to produce highly-valued and scare help. There is no shortage of the former, and customers willingly pay for the latter.

So, rather than be toast, let’s make one!  Here’s to life-long learning and the stable future that uncommon knowledge and superior offers in the marketplace will produce!

Becky

April 2, 2009 · Filed Under Business Philosophy, The Jackson Group

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