sábado, janeiro 24, 2009

Uma reflexão útil para os tempos que atravessamos.

Stephen Covey no seu livro "The seven habits of highly effective people" escreve:
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"Highly proactive people recognize that responsibility. They do not blame circumstances, conditions, or conditioning for their behavior. Their behavior is a product of their own conscious choice, based on values, rather than a product of their conditions, based on feeling.
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Because we are, by nature, proactive, if our lives are a function of conditioning and conditions, it is because we have, by conscious decision or by default, chosen to empower those things to control us..In making such a choice, we become reactive."
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"It's not what happens to us, but our response to what happens to us that hurt us."
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Vivemos tempos difíceis? Vivemos! E quem o negar não é sério.
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Enquanto os macro-economistas e os burocratas não vêem saída, já os anónimos actores da micro-economia podem optar pela criatividade estratégica, e descobrir oportunidades que os teóricos não vêem.
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Donald Sull publicou um artigo no Financial Times intitulado "Seizing the upside of a downturn" de onde extraí os seguintes trechos:
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"In a downturn, most managers fixate on the abundant bad news: demand is down, prices are falling, credit is scarce, and lay-offs are likely. Obsessing over threats obscures a surprising but crucial truth about downturns: the worst of times for the economy as a whole can be the best of times for individual firms to create value for the long term. "
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"Every downturn opens a window of opportunity to adjust the status quo, and astute managers push through necessary changes while the window is open. An economic crisis marks a sharp break with the past, and, observing the break, employees recognize that a firm cannot continue to do what it did in the past. The downturn lowers their resistance to change and cuts through complacency. A downturn often brings latent challenges to a head, and savvy managers can harness the resulting energy to infuse the organization with a sense of urgency in fixing these problems."
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"In a downturn, it is easy for managers to focus exclusively on managing threats, and thereby lose sight of golden opportunities. To counterbalance this, they should ask themselves the following questions. Are competitors retreating from opportunities that we can seize? Should we double down in growth markets, such as Bric economies, rather than retrenching to our core? Does our customers’ or competitors’ pain create an opportunity for us? Can we snap up key resources at bargain prices?"
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Claro que quem se alapa à boleia dos apoios governamentais não vai sentir uma necessidade tão forte de se ajustar ao novo status quo, vai por isso adiar a tomada de decisões, vai esperar que a maré suba para o 'barco' voltar a flutuar. E muito provavelmente vai ficar ultrapassado ... defendendo um pssado que já não volta.

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