By Philip Park
How do you steer yourself out of an emergency? I am talking here of the type of emergency that any business or individual goes through.

First of all, how do you spot an emergency? Simple, declining or unchanging statistics. Here is a graph of South Africa’s economic growth rate (gross domestic product) until 1990. I just use this to show you what an emergency looks like.

The good news is that any condition can be improved. The reason I want to focus on Emergency is that too often we hear companies blaming emergencies on “the poor state of the economy”, lack of government leadership and all sorts of irrelevancies.

How do they respond to this? They cut back on marketing and promotion in a misguided effort to save costs. This only drives them deeper into trouble.

Any emergency can be turned around. Previously, I discussed the condition of Affluence as an operating condition that obeys certain natural laws. L Ron Hubbard, who codified these conditions, discovered the formula for getting out of an emergency and it is truly miraculous when applied.

This condition has to be spotted and labelled an Emergency before it can be turned around. You will recognise it easily – statistics are falling or unchanging. This is based on the universal law that nothing remains the same – it either expands or contracts. It is better that we understand we can influence the outcome of any situation, good or bad.

1. The first thing to do is Promote (if you are a company) or Produce (if an individual). What does this mean? Get your name and your products known by whatever means available. This is counter-intuitive to many people because there just isn’t any spare money to promote. Well, you have to find it and spend it on promotion!
2. The next thing you do is change your operating basis. A whole industry called “change management” has sprung up around just this one point. It means getting more efficient at what you do. Focus on those things that will generate sales and income. Cut out the niceties that cost rather than earn income.
3. Economise. Notice this point is third on the list of actions to take to turn around an Emergency. Only when you have done the previous two steps do you economise, ie. cut back on needless expenditure.
4. Prepare to deliver. Get your activities aligned so that you are ready to get your product out to the customer.
5. Stiffen discipline. This may mean spending a bit more time at the office, working a little harder, making fewer mistakes (or even better, putting in systems to pick up mistakes before they occur.

This stiffen discipline point is important. If you’re the boss, you have to crack the whip a bit more than usual. Because if you don’t, life is going to bring its own terrible discipline to bear. Remember, a condition that does not improve will worsen, and there is little worse than watching a company or activity slide from Emergency to Danger (the next condition down) and then Non-Existence.

I will discuss these other conditions in future articles.

The reason I bring these up is that PCS has been in existence for 30 years and I have seen every condition under the sun. These conditions work, when applied. I urge you to try them too.

Good luck!