The current situation on the financial markets, most speak of a "Crisis", is interesting in view of a Constructivist. Immediately one particular question forms in my mind: "How the earth did we manage do achieve this?". To see us now as the victims of others is just the spyhole view of straight line thinkers. Everyone has contributed to the situation, in the one or other way. And for sure, there are individuals that earned a lot of money in the times before the crash of this financial construct called "subprime lending". Like with a pendulum, we move the situation into the complete other direction and the "Crisis" forms in our heads.
To the old and true asian wisdom "Mind your own thoughts, these are the beginning of your actions" we now all start to act. Sell stock, to limit our losses. Stop spending money, to limit our losses. Others act as well, perform short-sells to gain profits with falling stocks. Different context leading to different actions. The "Crisis" in our head, leading us to actions depending on the context we find ourselves in.
All of a sudden corporations start to investigate their investment strategy, from a different viewpoint. Working in the manufacturing industry here we see it very exactly, that plant investments are now questioned in a different context. The context from "profit participation within the growth" has changed to "reduction of the external financing". To lower the risk, that apparently was no risk in the previous context where the investment has formed and given the green light to proceed. Risk Management in action, where a different context leads to different actions.
From a evolutionary point of view, what is currently happening, we compare it with weeding out what has had a bad base for procreation. Companies with a thin level of equity are most affected now. Commited assets are not so "commited" anymore. Lenders as banks need to rethink their financial structure, having effects into the real market and individual companies. Tragic for the numbers of employees, which just did their job to earn a living.
And exactly some interesting parallel forms, one that we see always reoccuring in post war proceedings being expressed by individuals in the sentences like these: "I just did my job, I just followed orders". Well in private economy it may sound like such: "I just did my job, I just sold this product". It is one thing that persons in top-management give orders or direction, and it is another one that staff is following or raising questions on it.
Reading newspapers and following news coverages, there are reporters putting the same and same question onto the table. The one how this would have gotten prevented. I would put this question different, into "What was it that enabled this situation". To find out what it was that gave energy and the possibility to all of us to act such that this global financial development actually came into present.
My answer to it is simple lack of self-responsibility and self-intelligence. Sure, our world we made and every "consumer" is contributing to, is complex. And the more complexity we add to it, the more a single person might get overwhelmed by the developments. In my view the complexity results out of ourselves disconnecting from the world. When we buy, let's say simple groceries, we go to a store and buy whatever we see fit. Nicely packaged. Without asking ourselves where it comes from, how many miles in a truck or ship this item has made to arrive in this very shelf. We buy on price, and voila all of a sudden we contribute our share to a company that is good at logistics. Point is that with that we also make our contribution to the rising CO2 levels in our atmosphere. Just by buying a product that has shipped over thousands of kilometers by oil fueled transportation.
One level of complexity put straight into some sentences. It am strongly convinced that our "consumer" behaviour is counterproductive and the sole cause of such developments we see present now: The financial down of markets, the rising temperatures in our habitat, the ever ongoing straight exploration of natural resources without building cycles of resources like nature does. We are the cause of it, our "consumer" behaviour is causing it.
We have all tools at our hands to become more self-intelligent and self-responsible. One is the one you dear reader are using to read this article. The Internet. A global system of data, where we may explore and find out for ourselves. Instead of "consuming" what a media corporation has nicely packaged for us in the shelf of the daily news show or newspaper.
The hidden opportunity in this "Crisis" we made, is to make ourselves more intelligent. To stop "consuming" everything, and to start buying intelligently. Acting intelligently. To use our modern technology to make our own little research before making a step, or going into a conversation or purchasing anything.
Doing this on a daily basis, in the private context as well as in your business context, will also make companies more intelligent. Because self-intelligence of every single staff member will create the emergent quality of corporate intelligence. A smarter company that might not take part in "subprime lending" to unknowing individuals that have the dream of being a house owner. And voila, this crisis would have never been brought into present.
Fact although is that financial organizations did actively participate by turning themselves into a "logistics provider" transporting money from the botton to the top and across the globe on basis of taking individuals into financial responsibilities these are actually unable to fulfill. It always takes two to make things happen, in this case the lender and the one taking the offer. A system that apparently did work so well that on a global scale financial products where built ontop of it and organizations participated. With the failing backflow of money from the payee's the global interwoven structures on the financial market all of a sudden appear into visibility of everyone. Requiring financial organizations to make out of proportion deprecations, affecting their equity versus dependature capital ratio. Creating the effects and the situation we all now need to navigate in.
Now we need all of our intelligence to make smart decisions, we need to rely on the intelligence we currently have. Some stupid position to be in, where it would be much smarter to never have gotten into this in the first place by building intelligence before actually performing a step. As the old and true asian wisdom says: "Mind your own thoughts, these are the beginning of your actions".
One might need some self-coacing now, and this is the one question for you: "What are your hidden opportunities in this crisis now?".