The Monkey Shack

Over the weekend, my wife and I spent a good part of our Saturday working outside in the front yard. Most of our time was spent "thatching," raking up the thick layer of matted and/or dead grass that accumulates below the top layer of the lawn, especially after a winter of heavy snowfalls. The thatch on a lawn can be the biggest hindrance in growing a vibrant and healthy lawn, preventing water and essential nutrients from reaching the soil.

As we spent hours raking (we have the blisters on our hands to prove it), I thought about how well the process of thatching a lawn after the winter works as a metaphor for the challenges we face both in life and in business.

Until last weekend, we had not thatched our lawn since moving into the home. It had gone through three winters of heavy snowfall and two summers of hot, dry temperatures. As a result, the lawn was really starting to struggle in some areas, literally choking itself and struggling to survive the Utah high mountain desert climate.

In many ways, the current recession is like my lawn rake, getting rid of the areas of inefficiency that are choking a business and preventing it from healthy, vibrant growth. The recession's "rake" removes unnecessary or wasteful spending, undesirable products and services, poorly performing employees and management, inefficient business processes and models, and underperforming departments and companies. Once the thatch of business is removed, growth can occur.

You don't have to thatch your lawn every year, but should do so occasionally in order to keep it healthy. Same thing with recessions. They are cyclical. They come and they go. The important thing to keep in mind is that, while painful, they are necessary and in a counter-intuitive way, even desirable.