Recession and some early thoughts?

It is not clear yet if full recession has come to Latvia, if it will come, or even if anyone takes it seriously. The evidence is mixed. I went to Alpha Rimi last monday and the carpark was full at 12 Oclock. All the seats in a coffee house were taken and people were clearly spending money. One of my clients reports that his firm is doing better than ever. But on the other hand, two firms I am doing work for have reported a serious drop off in income. My observation is that much of the success and failure I am seeing is to do with the variable quality of performance of the workforce as market conditions start to bite. Many people are just not good enough at their job.

Two weeks ago I took a spin around a big furniture shop and then across the road to a car showroom. I was well dressed so in both stores they could have fairly assumed that I was a buyer. No-one aproached me at all to ask if I was interested in anything. The look of indifference upon the faces of the shop assistants was remarkable. They simply did not care.

Well you may ask why do you write about this in a people blog. Well for two reasons. This is a management problem in two parts. It is clear that there are either firstly not good enough guidelines for the staff or secondly that the staff have not been trained properly. 5 years ago in Latvia it would have been fine just to let the product sell itself. Now that is not enough. 5 years ago firms could work by letting the boss make all the decisions like some latter day Tsar. That is now not good enough either As the money flow tightens, the quality of the management and the performance of the staff are now going to become deciding factors. Training is still seen as an extra in Latvia. It will soon become vital. Like a football team, when the centre forward gets the ball, you need him to shoot at goal immmediately, not be taught how to do it then or wait to ask the manager for permission. Things must change in Latvia as far as selecting and training people are concerned.