Make a personal business plan for recession
Inspiration on steering your career through a recession is peculiarly sparse. But by applying the plethora of business advice to your career you can create some useful tips.
Three main principles emerge, all centre on taking control: of your direction, your investments and your emotions. Things you would want to do in good times but are still more important to do in difficult ones.
Base your plan on a sound view of the future: you will need to speculate on all that is going to happen.
A strong business plan focuses the attention, actions and resources of businesses on their ultimate goal. With the first whiff of any change in the marketplace, their plans are revised to keep the company moving in the desired direction.
In recession, our first task is to revisit our career plan. As events unfold, adjust or write for the first time your ambitions and the benefits you seek to achieve. Reschedule or schedule time frames to ensure they are still realistic. Refresh or construct your action plan to keep on track.
Base your plan on a sound view of the future: you will need to speculate on all that is going to happen. How long do you expect the recession and public sector freeze to last? What impact is predicted for your sector, service and career? Watch news, listen to critics, surf the websites, network and debate with a range of people to identify the possible scenarios. Hope for the best but plan for the worst.
According to the New Statesman smart businesses are “leanbut not short sighted”. Being lean means managing your investments – inside and outside work. Mindful that it is easier to save than to earn, reducing expenditure also provides more flexibility and choice in your future career moves.
Scrutinise new purchases and recurrent spending: are they needed right now; could they be secured another way – made, mended, borrowed; and, if inevitable, be procured at the required quality but least cost?
As a minimum:
- Continue to increase and hone your competencies. Identify what in your sector – in recession – cannot be done without, and equip yourself to provide it.
- Prepare your marketing materials well in advance. Have your easy-read, results-based CV up to date. Prepare a 15 second summary of your unique contribution to the workplace. Use all available media to attract new work.
- Finally and most importantly, successful businesses understand the power of emotion on behaviour, decision making and action. They control their feelings to ensure their impact for the good. Being aware of the most likely reactions in periods of instability better places you to deal with them when they are evoked in yourself and in others.
- Where decisions about our future are taken out of our control, fear and anxiety predominate.
- Fear destroys confidence. A pre-prepared career plan for all scenarios shortcuts the paralysis and offers immediate direction to your activities.
- Steering our careers through recession and the ensuing reduction in NHS management costs is a challenge we all face.
- Setting out our pathway, harnessing our investments and managing emotions to support our career goals makes for a good start.
Originally published in the Health Service Journal in July 2010.
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