There’s an unspoken rule of thumb in the news business that says, “If it bleeds; it leads.” Bad news, it seems, helps move newspapers, sell ads on TV, and generate clicks or “likes” on social media. I can remember a different time when professional journalists and broadcasters prided themselves on taking a more balanced approach to report the news. They were careful to never be too positive—or too negative. Things are very different today. Maybe social media has brought about this change. Now it seems that everyone’s first instinct is to look for the negative angle on an issue—especially when it relates to business.

As it did most companies out there, the 2009 recession hit Springfield ReManufacturing Corporation like a ton of bricks. But, as I’ve discussed a few times, there were a number of key decisions that helped us pull through to the other side. Now that 2009 is more than 10 years behind us, it’s clear those decisions didn’t just help us survive – they're what helped us thrive. We needed something to help us focus on surviving the recession and all the heartache that comes with a downturn.

Dealing with this pandemic is exhausting. Whether your business is shut down, or booming, the uncertainty about whether you and your people might be safe is something that doesn’t stop. In our case at Springfield ReManufacturing Corp., we’ve been labeled an “essential” business. We make parts for key industries like defense, health care, and agriculture. And like Steve Choate, my longtime friend, and colleague, likes to say, “Farmers are gonna farm.” If we’re going to keep our factories open we need to do everything under God to keep them safe. It’s got me up at night, and up early in the morning, trying to think through every scenario I can dream of.

A few days ago, I received a frantic call from a small business owner. This entrepreneur, who I’ll call Molly to protect the innocent, runs two retail shops. Like many similar brick-and-mortar businesses around the country, she had seen a dramatic drop in her sales over the past few weeks. Now, things were about to get worse; a lot worse. The state was mandating all retail shops like hers—along with restaurants, cafes, and other “non-essential” businesses—shut down to avoid spreading the coronavirus. Molly was beyond scared. Of course, she wanted to do the right thing and keep her people and her customers safe. But, by doing that, she wasn’t sure how she would pay her credit card, her rent, her banker, and her vendors. Worse, she wasn’t sure what would happen to her dozen or so employees—some of whom had worked with her for years.

Jack Stack, CEO of SRC Holdings, is an early riser. It comes from a lifetime of working in factories. But these days, in the middle of the coronavirus crisis, Stack is getting even less sleep than normal. “My day starts at 4:30 a.m.,” he says. Stack, like most business leaders these days, is trying everything he can think of to help keep the people who work at all divisions of Springfield Remanufacturing Company (SRC) safe and its factories running. It includes coming up with contingency plans to retain SRC’s employee-owners even if the factories are forced to shut down. Survival, to say the least, is a stressful job.

Listen to an episode covering this topic on the Change The Game Podcast: Fear. Uncertainty. A growing sense of panic every time the president delivers a national address filled with increasingly bad news. Even with interest rates at essentially zero percent, the stock market (and 401(k) balances) continues to tumble. Chatter around the workplace is filled with questions like: Should I get married? Can I afford to pay my rent? Will I get sick? Will I have a job tomorrow? Sound familiar?

Leaders everywhere are naturally expected to have all the answers. Unfortunately, this is one of the long standing myths of management. While the expectation is for you to know all the answers and you feel like you should have all the answers all the time it just isn't sustainable. You're bound to break at some point and many leaders find sharing obstacles the company faces with their team provides benefits for everyone involved.

You might have heard that Jack Stack is releasing his third book. His original bestselling book, The Great Game of Business, has inspired companies and business owners across the world with a life-changing business operating system that educates your people in the rules of business, rallies them around a common goal, empowers them to see and improve the score, and engages them by giving them skin in the game. It is in its 34th printing, was recently selected as one of the "100 Best Business Books of All Time," has been cited in 140 scholarly articles and 100 business books, and has been published in 14 languages. Now Jack is releasing his new book, Change the Game: Saving the American Dream By Closing the Gap Between the Haves and the Have-Nots to share the Why behind the Great Game of Business® operating system:

Anthony Wilder is a full-service, custom architecture, construction, and interior design provider founded by the husband-and-wife team of Anthony and Liz Wilder. The Wilder team has been creating award-winning projects in and around the Washington, DC, metropolitan and tri-state area for more than twenty years. Back in 2006, the company was setting records in helping their customers’ dreams come true as the housing market boomed. Revenues were way up, and the firm had built up a two-year pipeline of backlog work to come. Everything was going great, and as the old saying goes, “Why fix something that isn’t broken?” And then the recession hit.

Every year, like a little kid, I dread the passing of summer, but in recent years I’ve found a reason to look forward to what follows Labor Day, specifically the Annual Gathering of Games. It’s a special conference where I reconnect with old friends and learn something new – but this year’s Gathering was extra special for me.