Step forward to 2010 and we notice unemployment remained steady during the downturn and the stock market has nearly returned to normal levels. However, it is this lack of adversity, an almost apathy to the level of economic hardship experienced by other nations that may impact us more than we realise. It is often through adversity that people, companies and nations show their true colours. Take Japan for example, during the period post World War II they pulled themselves up and transformed themselves into a strong democracy and an economic dynamo.
By and large, Australia, Australian companies and Australians were largely insulated from the global economic downturn. It could be argued that because of this insulation, we as a nation did not have to challenge ourselves to think of ways of improving our business operations and our business models. While there was, and still is, a general trend of budget tightening or doing more with less, the affect is largely incremental and not monumental. Samuel Jackson, an 18th century literary critic once stated that “adversity leads us to think properly of our state, and so is most beneficial to us.” As a people, during the economic downturn, we were not required to think properly of our state. We were not asked to justify the complexity in our business models. We were not asked to eliminate all unnecessary work to ensure business survival. We were not asked to innovate to ensure recovery. This is the opportunity lost.
And now, with the economy almost back to normal, we can once again ignore the importance of these issues. We can revert back to the apathy that existed before the global financial crisis. We can once again pull the blanket over our nation and rely on our resources and the demand from our Asian neighbours to maintain a safe level of growth. But we can rest assured that those people, companies and nations that have experienced adversity and have had to innovate to survive will be the ones we will be competing against in the global marketplace now and into the future.