Perhaps I am a sucker for punishment. Or perhaps I have read the changed attitude correctly in seeing that people are no longer so upset FOR Pistorius, but are rather upset ABOUT him.
In the days following the murder of Reeva Steenkamp, I asked business owners to consider what the effect on their businesses would be if the most important person in their operations had been arrested the night before, on a murder charge. It garnered an interesting response from people apparently more interested in the fact that I might be trying to use the death of a demi icon as a money spinner.
What I was trying to do was use the sad event to bring thinking people’s attention to what might happen in their own lives if someone beyond their control were to do something terrible, resulting in their immediate absence from the business. Beyond this, I postulated that the person would be so distracted for the ensuing months, that he would be largely ineffective, anyway.
How does a business survive when a key person is taken out of action, for whatever reason?
There will almost certainly follow some time into 2016, during which the State continues to drain Pistorius of the last drops of his financial and emotional resources, while he challenges his conviction in the Constitutional Court. In the meantime we small business owners might once again think about our reliance on single key people, key suppliers, big customers. We might also consider what our backup plan is if that key resource were to become otherwise disposed as of right now.