“Those that fail to learn from history, are doomed to repeat it.” - Winston Churchill.
“Experience is the best teacher, but the tuition is high.” - Norwegian proverb

If experience is, indeed, the best teacher, we’ve certainly had a post-graduate education this past year. And, yes, the tuition has been very high.

So what did you learn from it?

I didn’t have an immediate answer when I asked myself the question. I realized that more time and focus had been spent navigating the chaotic times, than making sense of them.

Nonetheless, it would be a pity if one didn’t have an answer. What a wasted opportunity: the greatest upheaval since the Great Depression, and yet nothing learned from it.

So I stopped, and made sense of the past 12 months. I looked at my behavior, and asked myself what were some of the principles that guided me. Here are some of mine (and I’ll be asking for yours shortly):

1. Stay close and incredibly focused on your clients/customers, particularly when it’s the darkest and most uncertain. These were not times to go it alone, and there’s mutual benefit in trying to read the tea leaves with others.

2. The giving hand is always a full hand. Particularly when scarcity surrounds you, maintain an abundance mindset, and offer to help, even when there’s no immediate return. A zero-sum-game mentality can be incredibly self-destructive.

3. Enjoy what you do. Better to do what you love when the economic foundation is being shaken to its core, than hate what you do and struggle to find some satisfaction when the proverbial sky seems to be falling too.

So, again, what did you learn? Please post your comments below, or if you prefer to remain anonymous, click on this link, and list your insights in this 1-question survey:
What I Learned from the Great Recession

I’ll collate all responses, and share some of the lessons learned with readers of our 60-Second Email™ (without identifying the authors, unless you’d like the attribution). Please share this blog post and survey link with friends, family, and colleagues. There’s wisdom in numbers.

2010 will be here shortly, and “school” will once again be in session. My very best of wishes to you for the New Year. I hope the knowledge you gained in these past 12 months will serve you well in the next 12.

Issue:  Corporate Extravagance & Excess during an Economic Crisis
Leadership Lesson: Values flow from the top.  Period.  People grow numb listening to platitudes and well worn speeches.  Look at what you say and how you act on a daily basis.  What would your employees say about your integrity:  “No question, he/she’s got” or “She/he likes a more flexible truth”?  Put what you regularly say and do on YouTube for all to see: You comfortable with that?

Issue:  Bernie Madoff’s $65 Billion Ponzi Scheme
Leadership Lesson: Never confuse your wealth with your integrity.  It may be commonplace to keep score by assessing the size of your portfolio, the profits you bring to your division, or the sales you close in the month.  Those are important, and have notable impact in very tangible ways.  However the presence or lack of your integrity will always precede you.  Moreover, you have far greater control over it.

Financial performance may vary, and what goes down may come back up.  However, once you’ve lost your integrity, you never recover.  Beyond the direct damage done, you’ll also take innocent bystanders with you, like friends and family.  Guilt by association can have far-reaching unintended consequences.

Issue:  GM’s Uncertain Future
Leadership Lesson: Stay relevant.  Never lose sight of your boss, your industry, and your customers.  All are likely to change during your career, and your challenge is to stay relevant to all of them during that period of time.

What are your boss’s goals and why?  How is your industry changing?  Is it being threatened?  How will you survive if it doesn’t?  And what are your customers saying?  Is your company’s offer still relevant for them?  And is the work you do relevant to satisfying their needs?  If not, what will you do about that?

Focus on staying relevant first; then you can figure out what you need to do, and what skills or capabilities you’ll need to add.

Issue:  Companies are Contracting; Layoffs and Unemployment are Rising
Leadership Lesson: Many people have been promoted but without a formal title change, and their responsibilities and workload have increased.  It used to be that a job change often meant a title change.  The world, industries, and markets change far too fast now for businesses to keep up.  Job descriptions are outdated as soon as the ink dries.

Don’t wait for a change of title to know that your role has changed, expanded, shrunk, transformed, etc.  Be alert to the changes around you, and ask yourself how it all affects your role, your work, and your value to the firm.  If your firm has had layoffs, ask yourself what invisible promotion did you just receive.

If experience is the best teacher, what other leadership lessons have you learned from the recession? Click here, and share your thoughts with other readers.