The Year of the Ox

The year of the Ox

Imagine this: it is 2009 and the lowest point of an economy that our modern times have ever experienced.   You are responsible for a company and its employees and you have to be profitable. What do you do? How will you motivate more than 700 people to find a way to be profitable?

2009 proved to be one of the most difficult economic times in our modern history. Few of us have lived in such a difficult climate.

2009 was also the Year of the Ox. The ox is a perfect symbol to represent the tough economic times we endured. Why is the ox a good symbol for tough times? Because Ox are known for working in difficult environments and they do not complain about it. Oxen are also known for being patient and capable of enduring almost any amount of difficulty.

Our company’s employees had to perform like an ox in 2009. We all worked hard but were also patient during the tough times associated with the tough global economy.

Our company has a long history of nearly 177 years and has been through rough times in the past and yet continued to grow and prosper. Our company was in existence when the world was engaged in WW1 and yet we came out of it with a stronger presence. Our company was in survived the Great Depression and prospered due to our employees. We were in business during WW2 and still we excelled. The Asian financial crisis of early 2000 was but only a small disruption to our business. It is no surprise to me that our company did well and prospered in the difficult times of 2009 as well.

But how did we manage during this tough economic time?

In this turbulent time of economic blight, we utilized what we knew, kept our eyes straight ahead focused on the future.

So allow me to tell you what we knew:

We knew that the economic climate would not continue to stay “cold”. We knew that it would not stay chilled for forever and it would eventually thaw out and warm up. We planned that when the economic chill did improve and...