Continue with the next step while things fall apart

It’s hard to know what to write about small business when the mood in the country seems so universally negative. I have just returned from three weeks abroad and am struck by how quickly the mood is deteriorating.

One does not want to add to the gloom, but it does not seem realistic to write cheerfully about business as usual.

Yet most of us need to continue as best we can with our business despite rolling blackouts, infrastructure collapse, local government collapse, central government malaise, currency collapse, corruption and foreign policy threatening more dark clouds on the economic horizon. So today I decided to dust off a story I used in the early days of the Covid lockdowns in 2020.

As chaplain to the SA Sixth Division in Italy in World War 2, my father was visiting troops in a forward position. Dug into an isolated observation post ahead of the rest of the army on one side of a valley, they stared over to where German troops were no doubt staring anxiously back.

From time to time artillery shells screamed overhead, making them press down even further into the ground. But as they crouched they watched something extraordinary emerge in the valley below.

An Italian peasant farmer hitched up his horse and began ploughing his field. This was the season for planting. He knew that if he did not plant now his family would not eat or have anything to harvest later. So, though caught between two huge and lethal armies he carried on with the next thing that needed doing.

He might have seemed pathetically vulnerable surrounded by these mighty armies, yet it was only through his steady ploughing and planting that in a few months’ time he could provide for the future of his family.

Entrepreneurs go into business because we like to control our own destinies. Yet we feel caught now between lethal forces way beyond our control. Like we did when Covid struck, we have to focus our attention on what we can do, finding ways to save our businesses and preserve our sanity. We dare not allow discouragement about things we cannot control prevent us from acting resiliently in the matters we can control.

Resilience is one of the qualities found in successful small business owners. Personally we need to meet the usual requirements for physical and mental health: regular exercise, healthy diet and enough sleep, while maintaining healthy relationships and working on our own optimism.

In the business we need ruthless honesty in examining possible scenarios and working out contingencies for each. We were inspired through the pandemic by businesses that responded by doing just this, and surviving and even thriving through newfound direction and discipline. The same prescriptions apply: watch cash flow, cut unnecessary costs, encourage staff, treasure existing customers and look for new markets. A weak currency at least brings export opportunities for those with something to sell abroad.

What may be different this time is that we are not facing a mysterious disease out there, but known economic, political and social failures created by people. Big business is stepping up to help the national government fix services such as electricity, and is being urged to insist more assertively that the government act honourably in the best interests of the country rather than narrow political interests or personal financial greed.

Is there a similar role for small business owners at the local level? This need not be political. There are many dedicated officials who are probably just as fed up with squabbling elected representatives as we are, and who would welcome support on the ground. If nothing else, it would help preserve our own sanity to be doing something constructive.