As a follow-up to my last blog on exhaustion of resources, we get news from Australia.
My thoughts and prayers go to the people of Australia. Australia has banned using the word “drought” to explain why there hasn’t been a lot of rain lately. Weather conditions all over the world are in a state of flux – which is a thirty dollar word for “change”. Because so many farmers are in trouble because of the bad weather (families are having to split up to find other work, some are possibly suicidal, etc) the government figures that it would make things easier for them in dealing with the global climatic changes by letting their people what is going on and trying to remove situations which would result in people going out of control. It is never pleasant when segments of your society are starting to meltdown due to environmental or economic conditions. Governments have been established to help their people. The international news media and bloggers have picked up the information and are letting the world know what was said. How does this relate to business?
Changing words has often been used to introduce concepts or situations that aren’t going to well accepted. In the 1980s, the word “firing”, was changed to “downsized” and then to the equally goofy word “rightsized”. When I read words like that I think of McDonald’s shrinking the size of hamburgers or candy bar companies shrinking the size of Hershey bars down to “fun size” – those are the sizes of candy that you would normally throw out after you ate a “super-sized” candy bar. Sometimes changing words works and sometimes it doesn’t.
Changing the words may help get some of the tension away from the situation but what is more important is the second step that they are doing. The Australian government is trying to get the farmers use to the idea that they are going to be in for tough times and act accordingly. What does that mean for them as business people? For some families that have been multi-generational farmers, they may have to learn other vocations and it is tough for older people.
For some cities that have agricultural revenue, times will be tough for awhile. This is similar to what happened here in the United States when we went through our Dust Bowl in the early 1900s and families had to move to where they could get food and employment because the farmlands were drying up.
Here in America we are going through some tough times as well with the financial meltdowns, problems we have had with hurricanes, tornadoes and tension over our elections. The government has stepped in to help their people. I am sure Australia is doing the same. Loss of one’s population isn’t an option.
The take away is that people and their government have to work together to try to get through this and in the business world you have to change sometimes whether you want to or not.
Best of luck to us all!
Kim Greenblatt
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