Business Performance Coaching

It is three days after the 6.3 magnitude earthquake hits Christchurch, New Zealand.  A city that is no stranger to earthquakes, having been hit by a 7.1 on September 4th 2010, less than 6 months ago, felt as if it was well on the road to recovery.  Many businesses got off to a good start in 2011, business still had it’s challenges and many of us had a way to go to get business at the level it was prior to September but there was an optimism in the air.  An optimism that said 2011 was going to be a great year.

At 12.51pm on Tuesday 22nd February 2011 nature, in all it’s ferocity, shook Christchurch to it’s knees and with the crumbling of many iconic, historical buildings the optimism in the city was extinguished.  As our Prime Minister, John Key aptly stated, this is New Zealand’s darkest hour.

As much to help myself get through this, I am going to record a series of blogs, gathering my thoughts, talking about what I am doing to get my business back up and running and hopefully sharing some useful tips and advice along the way to help other business owners who, at this point and time, may be struggling to see the light at the end of this rather dark tunnel.

My experience of this earthquake is by no means the most harrowing, but an experience it was and one I hope never to have to repeat.  2011 for me started off really well, I had several new clients come on board, I had joined the Business Mentors New Zealand so that I could give something back to the business community, I had a series of workshops planned the first of which is on the 10th March and I had found out I was to be a training provider for an initiative put in place by New Zealand Trade and Enterprise, indeed I had my first client confirmed through it’s partner on the West Coast (South Island).  In a bouyant mood, I was driving across town to an appointment when my car started shaking, my immediate thought was “Oh no, not a puncture” but the shaking of the car became more violent, I was losing control of it, I slammed on the breaks and quickly pulled off to the side of the road, fearing my wheels had come loose.  It was only when I had stopped and the car kept shaking that I knew we had been hit by another major earthquake.

My first thought was I hope my wife and my 1year old son were safe, I called home, my wife didn’t pick up, I called again, this time my wife picks up the phone, I could hear the emotion in her voice as she was trying to control the tears so she could talk.  They were ok, albeit badly shaken, my son Lachlan was asleep when the earthquake hit, other than waking up, he was fine.  I immediately perform a u-turn and race back home, hoping that my client was ok, with a thought to phone her when I get home.  As I make my way from Riccarton back to Hoon Hay, the damage did not seem bad, there were several sets of traffic lights not working, which were the most challenging parts of the journey home.

As I get closer to my street I start seeing signs of liquefaction, just patches here and there, the thought went through my mind “I hope my street is ok”, it has suffered quite a bit of damage during the last quake.  I’m just about to turn down my street when I see, what can only be described as a scene from the sea side, there was extensive flooding in the street and that now familiar grey sand all over the place.  I decided not to drive down it, instead opting to drive round the 5km block.

My wife and son were on the street talking to neighbors, I was so relieved to see them, we just hugged each other, trying to make sense of it all, why us, why Christchurch, why now?  It all seemed so surreal, we had no power or water but thanks to the previous earthquake, we had plenty of neighbors around us that we now knew (we met most of them at a street bbq, partially funded by the local authorities due to the extensive damage our street took last time) this made it a little easier.

Walking into the house there is food on the kitchen floor, catapulted out of the cupboards, there are books and picture frames lying on the floor in front of the book cases where they came from, walking into my office, everything is off my desk and scattered across the floor but miraculously there is no significant damage.  We pull out our Civil Defense supplies, only to realise that battery operated radio we intended to by was not there (we forgot to buy it), so we tune in our cell phones to Radio Live then reality hit.

The Cathedral spire has fallen killing untold number of people, the PGC building on Cambridge Terrace has collapsed, many more feared dead, the CTV building has also completely collapsed, even more feared dead, there are bodies lying in and around Cashel Mall ….. what, really, is this happening, we sit glued to the radio, unable to compute what we are hearing.  This sort of thing is what you see on the news, it doesn’t happen to us, it doesn’t happen in New Zealand …  another major after shock, I dive under the door, it’s over just as quick, this is followed by a succession of other after shocks, all 4 or above in magnitude, the noise as they hit our home racks the nerves, fires off more adrenalin and sends the heart racing to unhealthy limits, can”t take much more of this, we leave the house and go for a walk.  The aftershocks don’t seem so bad outside and they are not accompanied by that awful noise.

We come across our friends, they have managed to pick their kids up from school and are hanging around outside their house, they don’t want to go back inside, one chimney has collapsed, they don’t feel safe, they are not sure what they will do.  The wife of the couple, her father turns up, having just driven from the centre of town, he is visibly shaken as he hugs his daughter, upset at what he has just seen.

We return home after an hour or so, we prepare some food and try to go through my son’s normal bed routine in an effort to keep things as normal as possible, we put him to bed, fortunately he goes out like a light, he’s not a bad sleeper, that we are grateful for.  My mother in law comes on the phone, and relays what she is watching on TV, is Christchurch really that bad, how will we ever recover, Christchurch can’t take this so soon after the last one, people are dying, no it can’t be happening, at this point we are definitely in denial.  Our power gets turned on at 10pm, we put the TV on, oh my god, the scenes of destruction are horrendous, we watch in shock, tears in the eyes ………… reality dawns, this is as bad as everyone says it is.

After an hour or so watching the news, we go to bed, hoping for a good nights sleep …….. we were going to be very disappointed ………

Part 2 – Click Here