Author: Jim Moorhead
Publisher: Greenleaf Book Group Press – 214 pages
Book Review by: Paiso Jamakar
Americans face four major problems in their lives, states the author of this book Jim Moorhead. Those four crisis-level problems are the four D’s: downsizing, divorce, disability, and debt.
Employees look at their colleagues in cubicles in their offices but they are not aware how much pain and stress they are in. One of their fellow employees will be laid off soon, and another will have to move out of her home due to a failed marriage.
A third coworker, in a different department who is disabled, is weeping because she barely makes ends meet and has no career-advancement prospects. Still a fourth colleague is so behind in her mortgage payments due to past long-term unemployment that she does not have the money to make her next payment.
Except for disability, the other three problems are a result of the ongoing ‘Great Recession’ in the United States that began in December 2007 and continues to worsen. This is evidenced by numerous economic measures despite the misinformed ‘feel good’ reports of alleged lower unemployment by the major news media.
These four personal issues are impacting the bottom lines of businesses where these individuals are employed, causing losses of about $75 billion a year, due to lower productivity caused by employees’ hidden grief, according to the Grief Recovery Institute, the author states, based on a Nov. 20, 2002 Wall Street Journal news item.
Related to the continuing U.S. recession are other events, besides the four mentioned above, that are part of what Moorhead terms ‘a country in crisis.’
One of them is depressed home values, which has not only stolen home equity from millions of people, but has put them underwater, meaning they owe more to lenders than the current market value of their homes.
The other consequences of the stubborn ‘wont-go-away’ recession is the decline in home sales, which has forced couples in ‘fractured marriages’ to stay together (“he is in the basement, I am upstairs”) until their house sells.
How can you as an individual or couple face and deal with crisis when it hits you? Jim Moorhead presents a four-step solution laid out in almost the full length of this book’s 214 pages. The solution shows you how to deal with your personal crisis in a timely manner and become an ‘instant survivor.’ It helps you stay calm, get support, stand above your problem, and move ahead to your goals.
He successfully overcame his problems: one a political defeat, the other a career struggle in high-tech entrepreneurship, and a third the loss of his dear father to lung cancer. These were before he co-founded a crisis-management practice at a law firm in Washington, D.C. in which he is a partner. This company helps organizations and individuals deal with their unique difficulties. He has been interviewed on the subject in the programs of television networks such as CNN, CNBC, MSNBC, Fox News, and Court TV.
He writes of his own gut-wrenching pains: “At age forty, I lost a race for statewide political office and felt like a leper: alone, ignored, no job prospects, savings nil….thankfully, friends rescued me….six years later, I became general counsel of a white-hot fiber optics company…but the dot com craze morphed into the dotcom crater…stock options (were now) worth pennies. With two children headed toward college, another career misstep or misfire in the economy would completely ruin us.
Employees are often the most valuable assets of a company, especially service-focused ones. For companies, the book offers ‘positive alternatives’ to laying off employees whose productivity has plunged so much that they have become liabilities with high carrying cost. It equips executives and supervisors with the strategies and tools to mentor struggling employees and help them overcome the problems that are hurting their performance at work.
Outside threats and pressures have hurt companies badly and even killed them. Moorhead says that he and his firm have been called on to fight class action lawsuits, criminal prosecutions, congressional hearings, and hostile takeovers.
This is a unique book. Not much if anything is out there in bookstore or online dealing specifically with how to handle crises that occur in people’s lives or in companies. Jim Moorhead fills that gap with this excellent work. Get it and read about his four-step crisis-survival plan that has worked for numerous people and firms, large and small.
