Slipping revenues and eroding profits have continued long enough to get everyone's attention. The major constituencies necessary to every enterprise: customers, lenders, vendors, shareholders, the Board of Directors, management and the rest of the workforce all know something is wrong.

Fear becomes a palpable force and constant companion. Customers fear the company will not be able to honor its commitments; the lender fears for his loan; the vendor fears he will not be paid; the shareholders fear loss of their investment; the Board and management fear failure, and; the rest of the workforce fears for its security and future.

As different as these legitimate concerns may be, fear results in certain common behavior:

1. It keeps us placing events and people into categories (boxes)

2. It stops us from leading

3. It stops us from letting go of the past

4. It keeps habitual patterns in place

5. Feelings of failure and insecurity stop us from making necessary changes

6. It keeps us from reaching out for help.

Small and mini-cap companies with sales in the 5 to 50 million dollar range are more likely to fail for want of timely professional help, simply because they believe they cannot afford the cost of turnaround services. This is particularly true for the mini-cap (sales 5-20 million) where management simply knows it cannot afford outside help.

Regrettably the concern about costs is often a mask to cover other fears concerning Crisis Manager Turnaround specialists:

1. The Turnaround Specialist does not KNOW the business. In many instances this is true. The Turnaround Specialist KNOWS crisis management and has highly developed negotiating and insolvency skills. As a practical matter he does not need to know how to make widgets, he needs to know how to get the people who can make widgets to do so. He also needs to know how to organize and motivate staff, lenders and vendors to participate in the turnaround. There is no viable substitute for this experience.

2. The Turnaround Specialist does not understand or appreciate our corporate culture. True. Rather than being bound by the problems and constraints that your culture has developed, the role of the Turnaround Specialist is to bring order out of chaos.

3. The Turnaround Specialist has no heart. False. The Turnaround Specialist brings objectivity, focus and control to a chaotic situation. He has been retained to make the hard decisions others evade, avoid or defer. An experienced negotiator, the Turnaround Specialist relies upon truth, be it pleasant or otherwise, to forge necessary alliances with lenders and venders and to restore customer confidence in the organization. He will bring a fresh clinical objectivity to the business of survival with a view to saving the good parts of the enterprise and many jobs. This creates the conditions necessary for the turnaround to succeed.

4. The Turnaround Specialist does not have to live with the effects of his recommendations. False. The Turnaround Specialist is motivated by success, just like most people. He is responsible to the stakeholders that retained him and dependant upon succeeding for his own reputation and career to prosper.

The ancillary fears placed in perspective, we come back to cost. Simply put, the cost of losing the opportunity for a successful turnaround is all that the enterprise has: money, assets, reputation, employees and any chance for a future. Fairly steep price to pay for ignorance and/or fear.

The all too common failure to obtain quick intervention and specialized help from a Turnaround Specialist is costly. The longer the problems fester the weaker the enterprise becomes. The cost of recovery increases as the likelihood of successful recovery decreases.

The cost of any turnaround attempt is threefold: time, effort, and money. Each of these is critical and all of them will be in chronic short supply until the effort is well under way.

While most turnarounds include staff reductions as a part of stopping the cash hemorrhaging, these job losses must be balanced against the absolute need for assistance in implementing the turnaround plan. The Turnaround Specialist is a catalyst in the process and must have the participation and assistance of each of the constituencies for the turnaround to succeed. Accordingly any job losses will be kept to the minimum necessary; recognizing the vital role the work force plays in the company's fight for survival. Failure or a chance for recovery and success? Not really a tough question, is it? Regrettably it is one that many stakeholders in small and mid-cap companies do not answer until a crisis has further deteriorated and finances are even more constrained, thereby increasing the cost and reducing the probability for recovery. A Crisis Manager retained early in the process is ultimately the best value. By working with an objective, skilled Turnaround Specialist a company can have the opportunity to achieve recovery and relentlessly pursue success.

©2007, Charles B. Van Duzer