I am sure that you saw the news yesterday where they were reporting the latest UK economic growth figures.
According to the Office for National Statistics (ONS), the UK economy grew by 0.5% in the third quarter of 2011, compared with 0.1% growth in the previous quarter. That may seem like things are getting better but many analysts have warned that growth in the second quarter had been dampened by one-off factors and that third quarter growth allows for this fact.
Further in an article on the BBC: UK economic growth picks up to 0.5% there was a graph that I’d like to share with you:
This, for me, is a really sobering chart as what it implies is the recession that we are coming out of (but we’re not out of yet) is, almost, as bad as it has ever been over the last century.
However, the thing that really concerns me is the rate of recovery from the deepest part of the recession. Assuming that the rate of recovery doesn’t change, and there’s no evidence that it will change, taking a ruler to the graph and extrapolating forward shows that it will take another 22-23 months for us to get back to where we were at the start of the current economic crisis.
Even more sobering.
That is, if we carry on doing things the way that we do them now.
Can we change our rate of recovery? I don’t know. But, if we are prepared to try new things then I think we give ourselves a better chance.
What sort of things could we do differently to get more out of our businesses?
Could we:
- Rather than trying to sell more to our customers, ask them how we can help them?
- Rather than telling people what to do, ask our team members how we can help them do their job better?
- Rather than just focusing on price, ask our suppliers how we can be a better customer?
Worth a try?
