But this day we were remote enough to need a guide. An hour or so into the trip as the guide pointed to a hole where a hibernating ground squirrel had been dug up by a fox, he introduced us to an acronym: HAM.
He told us there were only three ways to survive in the hostile Colorado winters: Hibernate...Adapt...or Migrate.
As I listened to him, I couldn't help but think about how relevant that was to nearly every other environment we could possibly experience.
Business for example.
Most of you have been operating in a severe climate beset by economic, regulatory and legal woes, and some days it can feel as rough and uncharted as a remote Colorado winter. Whether you're in the industry I know so well, healthcare, or another and whether you've been working one year or twenty, the landscapes we operate in have been redrawn.
In healthcare, for example, reform, patient and product access, regulatory change, shifting influence between physicians and payers and patients, aggressive FDA enforcement have all been part of this redrawn landscape. We've witnessed fundamental change, and there is no turning back.
So where does that leave us?
It comes back to H-A-M.
You can hibernate; fatten up, go underground, live off your fat then hope everything is better when you wake up.
You can migrate; go far away, hang out, return again and, like the hibernators, hope things are better when you reappear.
Or you can adapt -- not only survive difficult times, but gain strength and become more adept through that survival.
My advice, clearly, and I know something about this, is to adapt; make the necessary changes so that you can thrive in the environment emerging stronger and more determined than ever before to deliver the best results possible for your employees and your customers.
How you adapt is the art, but HAM is an acronym that makes sense to employees and to organizational leaders.
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