I recently watched a movie that came out almost 15 or 16 years ago, called "Mad City" featuring the great actors Dustin Hoffman and John Travolta. Travolta acts as Sam Bailey who is upset about losing his job at the Natural History Museum. He goes in there with a gun to really scare his lady boss who had sacked him. He ends up accidently firing it and injuring a guard. Max Brackett is a journalist played by Hoffman, who is covering the story. The whole incident escalates and Sam Bailey is amazed at how events go out of control. When the guard is shot, then it becomes a big issue: the police come in, the National Guard comes in, FBI all over. He had just walked in that morning to scare the lady in charge of the museum into giving him back his job. As things unfold, you can see him beginning to get into himself, finding that the situation is too large for him. Inevitably, at the end, he finds that he has no hope left and he's now looking at prison as he killed the guard. He wants to end his life despite having a wife and child.
Crisis situations come to all of us. Sometimes they are because of something we did; sometimes they are because of things that are beyond our control. But in all cases, the advent of crises in our lives must lead us to do something about it to move beyond. One cannot stay in a crisis environment, because if you do, then you tend to get immobilized by all the prevailing factors that are all around you at the time. That's what happened to Sam Bailey – he was caught inside the museum; he had hostages some of who were children, armed police were outside. He realized that, in this situation, the only way out would have been to surrender; but he couldn't take that. He just got immobilized by the situation and circumstances around him.
Sometimes that's what happens to us. When we go through life, we come across situations, or situations come upon us that tend to immobilize us. They are crisis moments, and if we don't use the crisis moments as an opportunity to move out of that situation, then we are immobilized by it and invariably just give in to that situation and are overwhelmed by it.
I was reading about Steven Gandy and Tim Duffy, who are co-founders of Meeting Zone. This is a conference and collaboration service that came out of the 9/11 situation in New York, when the twin towers were brought down. Travel by business executives at that time, came down tremendously. Nobody wanted to take a flight going anywhere. They saw this as an opportunity. They seized this crisis moment and said, "What we need to have is, people can stay where they are and still have a conferencing setup." So they built Meeting Zone, which then moved on to become a huge company. But they were able to turn a crisis into a great opportunity.
The same thing happened even to companies like P&G, GE and J&J when they all came through the difficult time that they had during the Great Depression. All of them came through. Jim Collins, looking at some of these companies, said, "What was different in these companies was that, in times of great duress, tumult and uncertainty, you had to have moorings. And these companies had it." Moorings were something that they could stand on. "They had an incredible fabric of values, of underlying ideals or principles that explained why it was important that they existed."
In a moment of crisis, that's what confronts you. As it did for Sam Bailey – Is there any reason to live beyond that? He couldn't see it. But there was. He had a wife, a child; he could still go through. But for him, it all came crashing down. There was no strong mooring for him. There wasn't a reason to exist. Unless you think about a reason why you exist and know it for sure, when times of crisis come, it's possible that the tide of events can take you with them.
I'm not just talking about your companies, although that could be relevant today. It could be that you are facing a crisis moment in your company. Maybe you've lost a big client, or a key member of your team has left. Or it could be personal. It could be that there issues with your spouse or children that are threatening your existence. Or it could be financial issues. It could be debt that is staring at you. Or it could be that you've lost credibility because of something you did. But all of these are good reasons to rebuild. Use it as an opportunity.
The one question that you ought not to ask in a crisis is "Why did this happen?" The 'why' question can be answered later. It can become an experience answer. At a later point you can look at it and say, "I've got to learn from what happened." But the question that needs to be asked is, "Now, what? Now what do I do to move ahead? I cannot be immobilized. I cannot be debilitated by these circumstances. What is it that I need to take me through, to tide me over this?"
After World War 2, many engineers were coming out of government labs that were shutting down because they were no longer needed. Hewlett-Packard was also going through layoffs. But at the same time, Bill Hewlett and Dave Packard said that they greatest opportunity they ever got wasn't technology; it was the opportunity to hire those engineers. They wondered how they could afford it but decided that they would find ways. Great companies, and great people, always look far ahead – 5, 10, 15, 25 years ahead and say, "Here's what will happen if we do this right."
Friends, that's what we need to do. We need to zoom out a bit. Firefighters say, and I'm quoting Collins, that one of the tendencies they have in a fire is to zoom in on a specific area in front of them; when really what needs to be done is to zoom out and get a macro sense of what needs to be done. In a crisis, that's what we sometimes do. We zoom in and then we can't get out to get perspective. Maybe this morning, that's what you need to do. You need to pull out a little bit. You need to be able to say, "What do I need to do to be able to overcome this situation? How do I get over this?" When you are faced with a crisis, there is a loss of the familiar. You lose the things that you are familiar with. That creates a sense of tension.
Friends, one of the strongest moorings that you can have is good values; not to just have them or know them, but to live by them. Good values will take you through situations like this. Good friends, good relationships that will be strong foundations for you, good family atmosphere/environment that you have cultivated – all these are strong moorings for each of us whenever we go through a crisis. Rather than wait for a crisis to happen, let's make sure that we have the moorings in place. From personal experience I can say that for me, the presence of God in my life has been my strongest mooring. He offers wisdom in any situation that you may be facing even now.
As our Scriptures say, "If anybody lacks wisdom, ask God; He will give it."
Maybe you need wisdom today to go through a particular situation that you are facing. My prayer for you is that you will get through it, that you will seize the opportunity to move ahead and not get immobilized by it.
Let me pray with you. Almighty God, I pray for each one on this call. You know where they are, You know the things that may be immobilizing them, You know the crisis moments that they may be going through. I pray that your strength and your wisdom will be available to all of them to go through this situation and come out stronger than when they were hit with it. I pray this in your name, Lord Jesus. Amen.
• Jim Collins: "Crisis into Opportunity." http://money.cnn.com/2009/01/15/news/companies/Jim_Collins_Crisis.fortune/index.htm?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+rss%2Fmoney_topstories+(Top+Stories)
• MeetingZone, http://investing.businessweek.com/research/stocks/private/snapshot.asp?privcapId=2738578
• Sam Cawthorne, "Five Steps to Turn Crisis into Opportunity." http://odemanagement.com/news/5-steps-to-turn-crisis-into-opportunity.html#.UvmK2XkSS6k
• "Mad City" http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0119592/
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