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PROBLEM 9

Given: an entrepreneur, who is usually well known in the place where he was born, where he grew up and where he has developed his business, cannot simply hide from his recent popularity at the drop of a hat. Just yesterday, he and his company were on billboards, on magazine covers, on employees’ name tags, on the side of cars, on the business cards given to numerous officials, suppliers, and customers, the company was a respected employer… Then suddenly, the soon-to-be bankrupt has to sever his connections with everyone. He locks himself in his luxurious country estate or drives off behind the wheel of an expensive car wherever the road takes him.

Question: what exactly is a psychological tsunami? It sweeps over everyone in equal measure, irrespective of the size of the business. When debts exceed the ability to pay them off, it is only the dishonest and criminally inclined who can remain indifferent. The rest of us realize that once all the resources we have feverishly sought to avert disaster are exhausted, the ‘great water’ will inevitably come to wash it all away.

A ruthless tsunami tears down harbors, seaside villages, and coastal towns, flings ships of all sizes and displacements onto the shore, smashing everything into tiny pieces. Similarly, bankruptcy shreds the usual rhythms and values, veers the meaning of life, and destroys what was dear just yesterday. The psychological tsunami smashes and ruins the lives of all people, however famous they can be, pulverizes tangible and intangible assets of any value, nullifies everything that has been built over years or even decades and provided a living for tens and hundreds of families. Those who are not legally savvy or do not have their in-house legal service feel even worse as they realize that they will not just fail to pay their debts but will be also dragged into the maelstrom of criminal prosecution.

Solution: Unfortunately, as practice shows, no one usually prepares for a potential bankruptcy or even thinks about exploring a civilized mechanism of protection from creditors well in advance of it. Nobody wants to even conceive that this can be possible for a business that was successful just yesterday.

Why do we listen to preflight safety briefings for the umpteenth time: what to do in case of ditching, how to inflate a life jacket and blow the whistle? Why do we practice running to the lifeboats on a cruise so that we know in an emergency which lifeboat is ours, where to find it and how to put on our life vests? And why do we not prepare in advance for a potential bankruptcy? It may be just around the corner, especially after yet another economic crisis.

Every single soon-to-be bankrupt becomes panic-stricken, desperately grasping at straws, as the vortex of impending bankruptcy begins to suck him in.

One should always prepare for bankruptcy by running ‘command-post exercises’ or ‘management games’, just as the military officers run simulations on maps or in a giant sandbox, recreating the terrain of the eventual theatre of operation. It is crucial to keep drilling who will do what when the inevitable bankruptcy first starts gently knocking on the window and then bangs on all the doors. Check the lifeboats and life jackets, make sure the oxygen cylinders are full and the parachute is properly packed. If bankruptcy cannot take you by surprise, there will be no panic, no psychological tsunami.