Business in Context

A few weeks back I hosted a 2 round table discussions among owners and executives of recruitment firms. The level of candor and honesty was more surprising than the widespread level of hardship. It’s oddly reassuring to hear from other people sharing the same hardships. Most of the 20+ business owners did also have stories of people in their organization who have had continued success but all had been forced to downsize and significantly reduce costs.

I had no inspiration to post over the past months and then I found myself back in the pediatric ward at NYU Hospital on Friday night. The opportunity in being here far exceeds any level of reassurance in mutual hardship at a professional conference. In the past 2 days we shared a room with a girl suffering from kidney infection, we played with a little boy recovering from his 3rd brain surgery in the past months and learned about Jasmina, the five year old girl in the next room with a rare and aggressive form of leukemia who needs a bone marrow donor and transplant to survive.

We will be home later this week, the kids we shared the weekend with will fight on and until this weekends memory fades, business will be approached in the context more important struggles.