Selection | Organizations that try to do everything when resources are scarce end up doing everything halfway.

Selection

In times of crisis, it is not the shortage itself that destroys an organization.
It is trying to do everything when you don't have enough.

You want to restore sales.
You want to protect existing customers.
You don't want to stop new business development.
You want to continue hiring.
You don't want to delay development.
You want to protect your funds.

I understand the feeling.

Everything is important.
Everything is hard to discard.

But in crisis management, this state is what is truly dangerous.

Everything is correct.
So you keep everything.
As a result, everything becomes diluted.

People, time, and funds are all dispersed.
Meetings increase.
The team becomes confused.
Priorities become invisible.

And in the end, everything ends up halfway done.

What is needed in crisis management is not comprehensiveness,
but selection.

What do you keep?
What do you discard?
What do you bet on, and what do you stop?

The theme this time is that selection.

In the previous article, I wrote that there are always signs before a collapse, and whether or not you can pick them up is a measure of a manager's resolution.

The previous article is here.

This is true.

However, just because you see the signs does not mean the company will automatically recover.

Rather, the moment the signs are seen, many companies move in the opposite direction.

They do this.
They take measures for that.
They try to respond to everything.

As a result, the collapse actually deepens.

What is needed in a crisis is not to increase the volume of responses.
It is to narrow them down.

It is to dedicate people, time, and funds to what truly must be protected.

Companies that overcome crises are not those that take many actions.
They are companies that can take a few actions deeply.

Situation

There is a common scene in companies.

Sales are slowing down.
The enthusiasm of existing customers is also cooling.
Gross margins are falling.
There is no room in the budget.
Recruitment is not progressing as expected.
On the front lines, exceptional handling is increasing, and executives are exhausted.

When a management meeting is held at this juncture, various logical arguments naturally emerge.

Sales says they don't want to lose new leads.
CS says they want to strengthen support for existing customers.
Development says that stopping feature improvements will reduce competitiveness.
Recruitment says that if they stop now, they won't be able to recover later.
Finance says that cash should be prioritized and fixed costs should be cut.

The CEO understands all of this.
That is why they try to do a little bit of everything.

At this point, the company looks proactive at first glance.

They pursue new business.
They protect existing business.
They don't stop development.
They continue recruitment on a small scale.
They also watch costs.

But a few weeks later, the front lines end up like this.

Sales pursues too many leads broadly, and in the end, none of them are solid.
CS claims to be focusing on priority support, but treats all customers with the same level of attention.
Development has no set priorities and is exhausted by both interruptions and existing plans.
Recruitment has a thin candidate pool, slow decision-making, and only consumes time.
Finance wants to curb spending, but each department pushes back, saying, 'We can't stop that.'

No one is slacking off.
In fact, everyone is working hard.
Yet, the situation does not recover.

Why?

Because they have not made a selection.

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Problem

When resources are scarce, you cannot protect everything at once.
Nevertheless, many companies are unwilling to admit this.

They are afraid to discard things.
They are afraid to stop things.
They are afraid to explain it to people inside and outside the company.
They fear that once they stop something, they might not be able to bring it back later.
They feel like they are admitting that they 'could not protect it'.

So, they keep everything.
However, that is essentially the same as protecting nothing at all.

In organizations that cannot make selections, the following things happen.

- Priorities remain only as verbal statements
- Important work and unimportant work are treated with the same level of intensity
- The front lines are told 'everything is important' and come to a standstill
- Executives continue to defend the issues of their own departments
- The president cannot make a final decision, and the whole organization becomes diluted

This is dangerous.

In crisis management, saying 'everything is important' is almost the same as stopping judgment.

If there is something that truly must be protected, you must let other things go.

Focus your time.
Focus your people.
Focus your meetings.
Focus your funds.

Only by doing that do priorities become a reality.
Companies that cannot make selections collapse due to their own kindness and earnestness.

They try to be considerate of everything.
They try to connect everything.
They try to leave possibilities open for everything.

As a result, they end up hurting everything.

What is needed in crisis management is not just sincerity.
It is the coldness to decide what to keep.

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Judgment, Management, Execution

So, how should one make selections?

First, what is necessary as a judgment is

to narrow down what you will protect as the highest priority in this situation to one or two things.

Is it cash?
Is it existing customers?
Is it gross profit?
Is it the core business?
Is it the core talent of the organization?

You cannot protect everything.

That is why you must first decide what cannot be lost in this current situation.
For everything else, you must either accept that it will be diluted or stop it entirely.

The next thing required in terms of management is

to ensure that selection does not end with words, but is translated into resource allocation.

If you say "prioritize existing customers," then change meeting times, staffing, and KPIs to favor them.

If you say "prioritize cash," then payment terms and cost control take precedence over sales.

If you say "prioritize gross profit," then do not praise those who take on low-margin projects.

If you say "focus on core business," then stop new initiatives.

Selection is not a declaration of intent.
It is a management design of where to allocate resources and what to stop.

And what is required for execution is
to clearly define what not to do.

The most effective action during a crisis is not addition.
It is subtraction.

Decide which projects not to pursue.
Narrow down the customers you serve.
Decide which meetings not to hold.
Decide which initiatives to stop.
Decide which exceptions not to allow.

When the workload increases, the front line cannot move.
When it is decided what not to do, they can move.

Therefore, selection is also the act of cutting back for the sake of focus.

Strong companies are not those that do not discard anything.
They are companies that can discard things in order to protect what matters.

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Results

Companies that can make selections change how they operate.

The front line stops hesitating.
Executive discussions do not get bogged down in details.
The number of points handled in meetings decreases.
Time is focused on important customers.
Development priorities become aligned.
The administrative department also becomes clear on what should be viewed as an anomaly.

And above all, it becomes easier to achieve results.
This is because resources are applied more deeply.

Conversely, in companies that cannot make selections, everything moves forward only a little bit.
However, nothing ever truly changes.

Sales becomes broad and thin.
Customer Success also becomes broad and thin.
Development cannot be fully completed.
Recruitment also just continues in a limited way.

As a result, only time is wasted.

The most costly thing during a crisis is not just wrong focus.
It is having no focus at all.

Companies that try to protect everything little by little find that when they finally notice, everything has weakened.
Therefore, selection during a crisis is not an aggressive decision.
It is a decision for survival.

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Structural Explanation

Why is selection so important?

The reason is that management during a crisis is essentially 'management of scarcity'.

Time is scarce.
People are scarce.
Funds are scarce.
Focus is also scarce.

Therefore, you cannot fight with the same breadth as in normal times.

Nevertheless, many companies try to keep everything as an extension of normal times.

They want to capture the market.
They want to protect all customers.
They don't want to stop new initiatives.
They want to dig deeper into existing ones.
They don't want to stop recruitment or training.

That mindset itself is already out of sync with the crisis.

Management during a crisis means deciding what to keep when you are lacking.

In other words, selection is not a technique of contraction.
It is a technique for reallocating limited resources to areas directly linked to survival.

This also connects to the precursors covered in the previous article.

Seeing the signs is also a sign that you cannot protect everything.
If you do not begin the selection process at that point, the signs will turn into problems.

Therefore, what is needed after picking up on the signs is not increased monitoring.
It is concentration through selection.

What destroys a company is not the lack of resources itself.
It is the decision-making that refuses to acknowledge the shortage and tries to keep everything.

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Conclusion

Organizations that try to do everything when resources are scarce end up doing everything halfway.

What is needed in crisis management is not comprehensiveness.

What will you protect?
What will you bet on?
What will you stop?
That is selection.

If you can select, you can move forward even with limited resources.
If you cannot select, everyone will work hard, but the organization will crumble thinly.

In other words, selection is not a cold-hearted judgment.
It is a prioritization to keep the company alive.

In the next article, I will discuss meetings, which are a symbol of the waste repeated over and over in organizations that cannot make these selections.

Meetings that don't reach a decision are not a matter of time. It is a matter of the agenda being designed incorrectly.

If this article resonates with you, please 'like' it so you can look back on it later.

In this series, I will articulate crisis management from the perspective of a 'CEO's right-hand person,' divided into symptoms, judgment, management, and execution. Please follow me if you want to keep up with the rest.

The word that should remain at the end is selection.