COVID-19, Mike Tyson and Hemingway…
I started a new job just as we were about to experience the greatest public health and economic shock most of us have ever seen. I was excited to get back to solving environmental problems and get to know our staff, but less than a month after my first day on the job, we were all confined to our homes, social distancing, and focused primarily on dealing with this pandemic.
A few weeks into our state’s Stay at Home order, ESPN replayed a series of classic boxing matches culminating in the Ali – Frazier trilogy. Muhammad Ali is a hero of mine, and watching him fight when I was a kid is one of the earliest sports memories I share with my father. But the fight that stuck with me that day was from earlier in the afternoon…between former heavyweight champion Larry Holmes and then current champ, Iron Mike Tyson. And in an unexpected nod to the present, the fight was at Trump Plaza, and the future President of the United States was featured prominently on camera in the center of the ring beforehand. Politics is truly everywhere these days.
Anyway, for the first three rounds of that fight, Holmes barely threw a punch. He was all defense, just trying to protect himself from the irresistible force of nature that was 21-year old Mike Tyson. Like everyone else who faced Tyson in that era quickly found out, that strategy wasn’t going to work out too well. The fight was over in the next round.
Yes, sports analogies generally suck. But there’s a reason they are cliché, and I went to bed that night still thinking about that fight, COVID-19…and about offense. When the coronavirus pandemic hit, my thoughts and actions were focused intensely on protecting my family, our employees and clients, and the financial health of our company. Like Larry Holmes, I was completely reactive, just trying to defend against this irresistible force of nature. As my mind raced that night, I couldn’t shake the thought that turtling up wasn’t going to work out well for us either.
In the weeks that followed, we started fighting back. We moved ahead with a major organizational restructuring. We revamped an employee benefit program to put more of the financial gains from our growth directly into the pockets of our staff. We’re advancing strategies to make inroads into new client markets. We even started executing COVID-19 related consulting assignments. We set aggressive goals and performance metrics focused on driving growth and competitiveness at all levels of the company. And we are hiring!
And of course, politics continues to impact all of it, whether it is legislation involving economic relief and stimulus or continually evolving guidance and directives directly affecting our operations. Like the start of that fight in 1988, Donald Trump was also a prominent fixture in middle of this ring as we square off against this pandemic. But the quote that guides my thoughts right now is from his opponent. At the Democratic National Convention in 2016, Joe Biden shared a line from Ernest Hemingway in A Farewell to Arms…
"The world breaks everyone and afterward many are strong at the broken places."
I think it applies to much of what we are dealing with today, whether it’s the economy, public health, the environment, or our politics. And while I certainly don't know if we can emerge from this fight with a strong economy or more united as citizens, I do believe our company will be stronger at the broken places, and I hope yours will be too.
P.S. Larry Holmes also came out aggressive in the fourth round of that fight with a spring in his step and some sting in his jab...and Tyson went ahead and quickly knocked him out. Whatever. Sports analogies suck anyway.
