Finding Opportunity in Crisis

Ed Fenwick
Senior Vice President

First, the bad news. It is an old myth that the Chinese word weiji (危機 translated as "crisis") is made up of two characters—one meaning danger, the other opportunity. JFK employed this myth routinely in his speeches, and it was then appropriated by Richard M. Nixon and others. The usage has been adopted by business consultants and motivational speakers and has gained great popularity in universities and in the popular press. For example, in 2007, Condoleezza Rice repeated the misunderstanding during Middle East peace talks; Al Gore did so in testimony before the U.S. House of Representatives Energy and Commerce Committee, and in his Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech. I am a little befuddled why speech writers don't check Snopes.com before adding such quotes—Kennedy and Nixon excused.

The good news: there is a reason this myth is so pervasive and persistent. It goes beyond the drama of the two symbols and a western bias for inspirational oriental wisdom. It is appealing for a very simple reason—most people believe it to be fundamentally true that there is opportunity in a crisis. There is sufficient statistical and anecdotal evidence that this is true. Emerging markets generate more millionaires per year as a percent of their population than established markets. Industrial market segment leadership change is its greatest during periods of turmoil. My kids are most likely get approval to have a sleep over on a school night when my wife and I are in a heated debate about a home renovation project. But more relevant to this current economic crisis, consider the following:

• One of our long-term clients is experiencing massive growth in their annuity business. A large part of the growth is from annuity owners fleeing uncertainty and moving to the safety of a large, old mutual company. The other part of the growth is people leaving CDs and fleeing to the safety of a large, old mutual company. This same large, old, and successful mutual company was also quick on its feet to see the opportunity in the crisis and quickly deployed an advertising campaign which was not about some sexy new guarantee feature, but rather about the stability and durability of their business model.
  
  

• My 16- year-old son just got his drivers license so I had the pleasure of getting auto insurance quotes. My agent started the conversation by saying, "If you want to get this done quickly we will be eliminating some of the top-end insurers." He said, "Companies like XYZ and ABC are swamped right now and it can take 8 to 10 weeks to get a quote." I did some quick research at home on the named companies and guess what I found? XYZ and ABC had also, in their own unique ways, gone to the market with a solid message that allayed fears and attracted those that wanted to move to the safety of an organization they knew would be there.
  
  

• The President and CEO of one of our clients is spending a large part of every day encouraging each and every segment of the business to stay focused, find the opportunities, and exploit them. He said to me, "Some part of our competition is losing focus and seeing the fear. There are obstacles but probably no greater opportunity to capture profitable market share than in this crisis."