Whose team are you cheering for?

Photo by glenn1964

Our family is filled with ardent Packer fans and normally I am one of them. Yesterday I watched the Packers play the Lions with a slightly different mindset. I was almost happy that the Lions won. Just wait! Before all the Packer fans come out in force to chastise me, hear me out.

Presently, I am working with a client from Michigan who is an organizational change consultant. Her new resume is filled with well-substantiated success stories. But one of the issues she faced  was that she is finding it harder to find the kinds of positions she once had. The recession has hit us all hard but as she explained it, in Michigan and especially the Detroit area, the economic downturn started with 911.

Quick thoughts on economic trickle down

Trying to understand complex economic theory which baffles even the experts is hard. Most of us understand, however, how hard the automotive industry was hit. The thing we forget is how that ripples down into the rest of our society. In Wausau, Wisconsin where I live, there are no automotive manufacturing plants but that doesn’t mean there aren’t direct ties to the industry.

Marathon Electric, now Regal Beloit, a Wausau area manufacturer, makes motors and generators and those motors and generators were a key part of the automotive industry. Marathon Electric’s local suppliers included multiple other firms that made parts for them. The economic cycle keeps going.

Then you have other connections that are not so obvious. Wausau is also a center for the construction industry which needs a good economy to thrive. Wausau Homes who has a network of building contractors throughout the United States took a hard hit with the latest recession as did many of our local contractors and the related building supply manufacturing companies, such as Kolbe & Kolbe Millwork and Greenheck Fan Corporation.

When you put contractors and manufacturing plants out of work, then you start hampering their employees’ ability to spend money at shopping centers and restaurants. It continues to trickle down until it affects all of us.

We all need something positive to hang on to

If the automotive industry recovers and the building industry recovers, then I think we all will be better off… So you can see why I think Detroit can use something positive, even if they did beat the Packers.

Winning affects every one of us. If we believe we are a winning team, we can accomplish great things. If we think we are a losing team, we tend to keep failing.

Right now, we all need to feel a win. We all need to be cheering for everyone and that positive boost might just put us in the direct of an economic win again.

What do you think?