Control?

There is one constant in life on earth, change.?Good times become bad, bad times get better.?Peace devolves into war, war resolves itself into peace.?Democrats rule DC, Republicans rule DC. ?Gas costs $0.89 a gallon, gas costs $4.39 per gallon.?I know, the reference to fuel below a dollar dates me, but it was real!?All these cyclical changes impact our lives and our businesses in different ways too, some positive, some negative.?There is nothing we can do to control these changes.?What we can do is control how we choose to react to change when it occurs.?Change can make us depressed and angry or we can choose to accept it and make the best out of even negative changes that occur around us.

?????????????The forest products industry has benefitted lately from positive changes with the markets that influence product pricing.?But, think about the spark for these changes.?The changes that were the catalyst for strong construction were a direct result of a negative occurrence, COVID.?Certainly there was a lot of build up to get us to this point, but the catalyst that reversed housing trends was a worldwide pandemic and the philosophical changes around larger spaces and the desire for home ownership by the younger generations got it’s nudge from a deadly virus.

?????????????Please do not misunderstand me, the loss of life from the latest coronavirus was tragic, and I am not intending to minimize that or anyone’s individual experiences.?I am simply pointing out that human ability to persevere out of tragedy is greater than the tragedy itself.?Even the worst tragedy imaginable, the holocaust, now provides great stories of human selflessness and courage that inspire resilience in difficult circumstances.?The fundamental tenant of human morality, the Bible, is a series of human attempts to wrestle control from God only to ultimately realize our control is limited to how we choose to react to the circumstances we face, not whether we face them or not.?Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is also tragic.?The loss of life, senseless destruction, and worldwide disruption one insane autocrat is creating is terrible.?I would welcome a solution to this situation, but the truth is more than likely this will play out over a much longer timeframe than anyone would like.?It will create negativity in personal lives, politics and world economies that will again leave us with but one choice, one thing we can control; how do we personally react?

?????????????I started in the hardwood industry with Coastal Lumber Company.?One thing Coastal Lumber required of sales and supervisor level employees was to take a Dale Carnegie course.?One of the principles I remember from Dale Carnegie is to determine the worst case from any situation, describe it and reconcile yourself to how you will deal with that if it happens.?The theory is that by preparing for the worst case you mentally prepare for how to handle that making it less daunting.?The trick here is that when we imagine the worst case in a situation, our minds tend to go pretty dark, and by reconciling ourselves to that end, what actually plays out seems less severe and hence our mental state is left relieved and happy that the worst we imagined didn’t happen.?

?????????????Now, to make the leap of all leaps…by first admitting 1000% that nothing involving the economics of the lumber industry warrant the concern nor are on any scale as important as pandemics and wars, but that is largely the point I am making.?I love discussing, pondering, and debating how world events will affect our industry.??But, there isn’t one worst case scenario I can come up with for the hardwood lumber business that should causes any severe distress or angst.?Will our industry be different in 2023 than now, probably??Will it be worse, possibly??Could it be better, hopefully??The point is we don’t know and we have very little control over the answer to any of these questions.?That doesn’t mean we don’t think about it and plan for our businesses by projecting what we think will happen.?But, I remind myself and encourage you not to live and die by any one view of how things will play out.?Fuel prices may keep rising and that could affect affordability changing consumer spending and/or it could cause families to staycation at home instead of travelling and convince themselves they need to undertake a renovation of their home.?Putin’s action could inspire China invade Taiwan drastically changing the world dynamic and effectively eliminating a large customer and supplier of the US economy; which could in turn spark more investment in US manufacturing and market diversification to other world markets.?There are always short term and long term impacts of situations.?An abrupt change drives short term impacts and often is a shift from an accepted normal thereby seemingly negative, while societal reaction to that diversion creates a longer term adjustment where lessons are learned, preventative measures implemented and safeguards developed resulting in a positive result for society.

?????????????If I may be so bold as to offer advice from my own experience.?The best preparation is to steward what you have been entrusted with.?If you are in sales, strengthen your relationships.?Be honest, open and conduct your business with integrity, even when you have to convey difficult information.?Know your business costs and demand a profitable price for your products.?Costs are not going down, and prices for products from fuel to groceries is rising.?Forest products cannot fall back to pre-pandemic price levels.?If you are in operations, improve your quality to create demand for your brand of products, and address inevitable problems openly and humbly.?As managers, expect the best from your people and treat them equitably when they live up to the expectation.?We reap what we sow and culture emanates within an organization and through that organization to the customer, vendors and industry it interacts with.?Collins recently updated our corporate mission statement, ‘Helping to build a better world’.?Obviously that plays on the fact we are a forest products company literally supplying builders, but also on the principles above.?We aren’t perfect as people or an organization, no one is, but that isn’t an excuse to stop trying and improving.??