b'FOGHORN FOCUSPARADOX 2021: Getting Back to Work BY BOB SHAW // INDUSTRY CONSULTANTA year ago, if you had told me that the COVID-19 disruptionto overtake the U.S.s.The Japanese had bought great American would be ongoing today, Id instinctively respond with theicons such as Rockefeller Center and Pebble Beach.Incredibly, Ernest Hemingway quote in The Sun Also Rises: How dothe real estate in downtown Tokyo was valued higher than all of you go bankrupt?Two ways.Gradually, then suddenly.After allCalifornia!Expert pundits were extolling Americans to become we have been through, we are still here.2020 was a journey aboutlike the Japanese.That drumbeat seemed incessant until Atlantic Darwinian Survival.In The OrigineditorJamesFallow,wholivedin of the Species Charles Darwin asserts,Japan,wroteabookonhowto It is not the strongest of the species2021 will be the Worldscompete with the Japanese.It was that survives, nor the most intelligentBiggest Start-up.Weentitled More Like Us.Curiously, the thatsurvives.Itistheonethatissubtitle was How to Make America most adaptable to change.2020 wasare starting from scratchGreat Again. Fallows prescription aboutAdaptability.Adaptingandwas not to emulate Japanese quality reacting continuously to unforeseenwith tiny teams.We mustcircles,consensusmanagementor andformerlyunimaginableintegrate new crew andslavish devotion to companies.He circumstances.Ourindustrysaid we needed to be more like us, operators buckled down and made itsystems, while massivelymore American with entrepreneurial happen. scaling up.We mustrisktakers,socialmobility,strong educationandanopennessto This year will be equally challenging. fi immigrationandnewideas.Thatnd new customers and I am telling my teams that 2021 willthreat eventually passed with time.be the Worlds Biggest Start-up.Topartners.Rebuilding after illustratethedifficultyofstart-upslosing muscle memoryOur paradox for 2021 is combining Id say, if you can do eight thingsDarwinsmantraofadaptability wrong, Ill do 12.We are startingcan make 2021 even morewith more like us.We cant be so fromscratchwithtinyteams.Wedaunting than 2020. adaptable that we forget what built must integrate new crew and systems,ourcompanies:superiorcustomer while massively scaling up.We mustservice, great local market knowledge fi earned as pillars of the community, safe operations with gleamingnd new customers and partners.Rebuilding after losing muscle memory can make 2021 even more daunting than 2020.All ourboats, and our smiling, dedicated and experienced crew.F. Scott metricsandyardsticksareeitherinactiveorperhapschanged,Fitzgerald wrote, The testof a fi rst-rate intelligence is the ability to maybe forever. hold two opposed ideas inmindat the same time and still retain the ability to function.We are savvy businesspeople who can adapt In the late 1980s, the Japanese economy was on fi re and projectedwhile being more like us.FOGHORN FOCUS: HUMAN RESOURCES 22 FOGHORN'