One of the only positive outcomes from a very tough weekend for our country was the couple of minutes of pride we all had watching the launch of the Space X Dragon into outer space as part of the next generation of exploration.

Having been just 7 years old in 1969 during the moon landing and the heyday of the space program, I can remember vividly building a full scale NASA lunar module as a 3^rd grade project and then years later seeing the actual spacecraft in the Smithsonian in Washington, DC. From a design perspective it was incredibly sophisticated for the time – more than 50 years ago - and something that took my breath away when thinking about the 3 astronauts inside flying home after making history.

As readers of this blog know, much what I write about is related to what’s in the news, blending it with Business Acumen concepts and teaching points, and providing practical tips and tools for immediate application back to the job for increased business performance.

Over the past few weeks, I have been listening to the weak signals and chatter emanating from the C-Suites of many different organizations and one of the things that I am hearing getting louder is the increased focus on cash flow as a financial metric that matters. As we head to the last month of what will sure be a disastrous Q2 for many businesses, the murmurs about ways of increasing cash flow through cutting budgets will increase based on the pressure board of directors will be putting on their CEO’s and CFO’s. It will be tempting for many of them to cut Marketing and other functional areas like R&D that don’t have an immediate (next month) impact. However, most successful leaders understand that you literally can’t cut off your nose to spite your face. Cutting Marketing and R&D is cutting off the lifeblood of future revenues and profits. While cash flow may increase in the short term, shareholder value (how much the company is worth) will decrease over the long term because it is being starved of the key ingredients that drives it.

Insights 10 Weeks into the New Norm

When we started the new year of 2020 not many of us predicted that when Memorial Day weekend, the start of the summer season, came about that we would be in a lock down thinking about how a global pandemic would resolve itself.  But here we are, so Happy Memorial Day everyone!

For many who are either functional business leaders supporting the learning or development of their organizations and team, or the talent development professionals thinking about executing their T&D strategies, we have a chance to reflect on the journey so far and the journey yet to come over this upcoming long weekend.

The Shocking Truth

When it was my turn to answer the question of what I was most thankful for at our family Thanksgiving dinner, 2019 and I answered “The great people of American Airlines who took care of me during the 232,000 miles I flew last year to deliver in-person leadership and business simulation workshops around the world.” I never would have imagined in a million years that just a few months later I would be writing a blog about how virtual simulation workshops are in many ways better than in-person simulation workshops.

But we must face and acknowledge the realities of our new normal and think deeply about the feedback we received from a high-level decision maker at a global pharmaceutical company who ran a virtual business acumen workshop for their high potential leaders last week:

Later this week we will get word that because of COVID-19 the US economy is in a full blown and significant economic recession. As many of our readers of this blog work in large businesses, I wanted to take some time to enhance your Business Acumen and share some data insights and potential implications to your decision making as we anticipate and decipher the US industrial production reports that will be released on Wednesday and Thursday.