Blogs and Casestudies

Given the current events in Ukraine, "war" is an unfortunate business metaphor. It is not intended to trivialize or minimize the suffering that war causes by transferring some of its characteristics to a competitive environment in which people are fighting for their jobs. Unfortunately, war is a human activity whose lessons also apply to other, less destructive endeavors of ours. For example, "The Art of War" by Sun Tzu is an ancient military manual that is still quoted in articles about success in business or in life, and there are many books for entrepreneurs that compare starting a business to going to war.

The "wartime" and "peacetime" phases of a business are very different. While wartime is more stressful for employees, they work for the company with greater efficiency and focus. In peacetime, on the other hand, the work environment is much more comfortable for employees, but the pace can be slower, even if there is enough time to invest in longer-term projects that would not receive attention in wartime.Companies don't switch back and forth between wartime and peacetime because they want to, but because they have to. Many executives would probably prefer to always operate in a high output mode comparable to times of crisis, but there are several problems associated with this:

-Staff turnover is much higher. Some great people leave the company due to burnout who would stay if they were less stressed.

-It is difficult to implement a long-term strategy because there is no incentive to pursue long-term goals.

-It's hard to motivate employees to continue working in war mode when the company is obviously thriving.

The result of a successful focus on the war or crisis described by Horowitz is that the company comes out ahead in the market and creates enough room to recover. This cycle then repeats itself. The sooner you figure out how to operate efficiently in both modes, the better off you will be in the end. Compared to 2021, when many scale-ups completed historic funding rounds and transitioned from crisis to peacetime, more companies are now moving into crisis mode.

Figure out where your team/organization is right now, apply strategies to succeed in this environment, and assume that sooner or later things will change again and you will have to adapt again.

Thats the end of the War Time Peace Time series. Thanks for reading all the way through <3