As I made my Christmas rounds of visits this year, I reflected on what, if anything, had changed from previous years.
On a personal level (for do we not usually start our thinking from this perspective – it’s entirely proper to do so: the individual’s positive sense of self is the cornerstone of success and community well-being), its been an unusual year for me. After a lifetime of great health, I blacked out in May on a bike ride that led to a bypass operation. And then in October, fully recovered and back exercising, my bike decided to fall beneath me, thus breaking a leg. I am now the less than proud possessor of all the trainer wheel jokes ever created. While neither impairments would have been my choice, I have learnt to cope with hospitals, the dark hours of the night, and never to take good health for granted. I also learnt that the disciplines I had hard gathered over a lifetime became sustaining rocks to cope.
I also rediscovered first hand what a wonderful hospital (and health people) we have in Masterton.
I hope to be back biking in a week!
A year of uncertainty
Perhaps (unduly?) influenced by this, I reflected how uncertain the world currently is with the ‘crisis’ of Europe’s economy, the Arab world revolutions, and the challenges that have occurred to our market economy over the past 2-3 years.
The challenges to the market model and capitalism have been inevitable, I believe, and have believed so for a number of years. The sole reliance (or the over reliance) on profit as the driver that will deliver all that is good, has been recognised for some years now as a flaw. The private enterprise model is fundamentally right for most business circumstance but certainly not all. The growth in other styles of enterprises where profit is important, but balanced by wider agendas of social and community well-being, is thus better able to deliver a more humane market and society.
That uncertainty is reflected in reduced business confidence. People seek the more safe and secure road during these times. Spending is reduced, debt lessened and we become more risk averse.
But risk is inevitable in life and business. You can not live life on trainer wheels.
All of this is mostly understandable at the level of reason. It becomes less certain when you (I) have to adjust to changing patterns of trading.
At one level, far reaching change is occurring, and some of this change we can only dimly discern at this time. Other changes like daily trading patterns are immediate. We have to exist in both these ‘two worlds’ and make sense of it all through leadership and meaningful action.
And that’s not easy when much is uncertain.
Reassesment of business units
We spent time during the year reassessing the performance of each of our 25 businesses particularly in the context of the future. Inevitably some do not fit our criteria for performance; while elsewhere opportunities exist that need pursuit. We shall be releasing information on both as they become firm decisions.
And so, to end where I began with my musings: much has changed, while much remains the same.
Bernard Teahan
