Swan Song

Just about anyone can do just about anything.

When. Everything always falls. Exactly. In to. Place.?

You don’t need to be David Sklansky to take down a hold’em game when you’re flopping sets and spiking rivers hand after hand, hour after hour. Or, to go from catching cards to catching waves, Kelly Slater when the sea is serving you a steady stream of clean breakers all the way to the shore.

In other words, everything’s easy when it’s easy.

But what happens when the going gets tough? Well, if you ask American political patriarch Joseph Kennedy or British pop singer Billy Ocean, the answer is so obvious, it’s clichéd.

The tough get going.

Yippee, that’s great for them, but what about the wusses? The wimps? The 98-pound weaklings? The spineless marshmallows with gelatinous limbs and nervous tummies?

Well, it’s three words that start with these three letters: SOL.

If you’ve been in the gaming industry long enough to remember 2001 . . . or 2008 . . . or 2020 . . . and depending on where you are in the world, 2021 and 2022, then you know what you do is not for wimps, weaklings, or marshmallows. Because, while at the tables or the machines, the house always has the edge, macro factors (terrorist attack, global financial crisis, deadly pandemic) outside our control exact their vig on all of us.

So, among leaders, what can you do—or as a corollary, not do—when said $#%@ hits the proverbial fan? How can you avoid the pitfalls and inevitable downfall of being a fair-weather boss; and rather, sharpening your skills and your sword to not only fight the battles you know about today, but the ones you can’t see coming in the years ahead.

Let’s find out.

EXPECT THE UNEXPECTED

The term “Black Swan” dates back to the second century because, apparently, that’s how long stuff’s been going all sideways and pear-shaped. The metaphor, of course, refers to an event that was impossible or nearly impossible to predict. Taking the wayback machine to the early days of the industry and you see there is always something, be it wars, sovereign debt defaults, military coups, plane crashes, currency de-listings, natural disasters, technology disruptions, and whatever and whatnot that may not technically be a black swan, but at the least one that’s charcoal grey. ?

And there’s a whole flight of swans—that’s what it’s called; had to Google it—waiting to strike in the future. You don’t know when and you don’t know how, but they’re coming.

The point is to not take the status quo for granted. Because as steady as it may seem when times are cushy, they’re built on ground that’s going to feel a tremor every so often. If you want to be shocked at something, be shocked when everything is smooth and easy for a protracted period of time.

?BE EMPATHETIC

In the movie Jurassic Park, two children are trapped in a car outside the Tyrannosaurus Rex paddock. You know, as happened to all of us as kids. Jeff Goldblum, who is in the car behind them, tells Sam Neill they might be scared, what with the dark and the rain and the most fearsome predator the world has ever known lurking somewhere nearby. But Neill says, “What’s there to be scared about? It’s just a hiccup in the power.”

“I didn’t say I was scared,” Goldblum says. ?

Exactly.

And when the next sucker punch comes to our industry, it’s not the CEO or the CFO or the C-whatever-O that is scared. It’s the folks further down the trough that haven’t yet made their names or their scores. Maybe they just had a baby or relocated from out of state or graduated college with a ton of debt. You’re damn right, they’re scared, because a swan like this could ruin their lives and their livelihoods before they even start.

It’s important to empathize, put yourself in the skin of the other person and understand what they’re feeling. Because it’s probably different than what you’re feeling. ?

But while the time of crisis is indeed the right time for comfort, it’s the wrong time—the worst possible time—for platitudes and false promises. Which leads us to . . .

LEVEL WITH ‘EM

Fine wine, cheddar cheese, blue jeans and Jennifer Lopez are the only things that improve with age. As for bad news, yeah, it’s more in the banana category: the longer you wait, the nastier and mushier it gets.

And to make matters mushier, the longer you procrastinate with the truth, the longer the rumor mill has to grind away all semblance of trust and morale.

Gotta nip it in the bud with the cold, harsh facts.

Now that doesn’t mean you can’t have a little bedside manner. When crisis hits—and remember, you’ve been expecting something to go haywire, just didn’t know what to expect, like Forrest Gump’s chocolate box--speak to everyone on your team as soon as possible, even if the full measure of the menace isn’t readily apparent. Let them see you care, and let them hear the honesty and candor of a true leader. No, you won’t give them all the answers, but you will give them the access to you they crave when it feels like the walls are closing in around them.

Just don’t sugarcoat anything. They may hate it—and perhaps you, at least in the moment—when you’re spooning out helping after helping of the bitter truth, but in the long run they will respect you for shooting straight with them.

And furthermore, once that Black Swan passes, they will know you’re the exact type of leader they want to get behind when the next one comes.

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