The economy is changing speed

Are you also playing the guessing game of how the various economies will develop? Will America fall back into recession (Japan just did)? Will China continue to grow at break-neck speed? How come that Germany is the only EU economy solidly growing? Luckily, Switzerland did not have a housing bust in 2008/2009 and we are back on the growth track. Almost. Over the course of the last few months I have been speaking to several dozens of people in business. The fields ranged from banking to hedge funds and from architecture to law firms. Interestingly everyone is singing the same tune: future anxiety. Despite a solidly growing Swiss economy, managers are uncertain about the future. It seems that everyone is afraid of making decisions. It is the time of the OTH-guy (on the other hand) who constantly sees the glass half empty. The cons of this behavior: procrastination and decision making angst. It doesn't matter if you are a banker, hedge-funds-start-up, architect or a lawyer. Clients love to procrastinate indefinitely. Everyone has ample time and would rather have another meeting, phone call or presentation. Everyone, of course, is interested in new products, ideas and hiring people. But no one wants to pull the trigger. No one. Employees who have jobs stay on. People on the look-out for jobs are faced with assessment periods of two to six months. And in rare cases when a decision is made, the speed changes from snail's pace to warp-speed. Patience turns into mania! Results need to show in months, or better still in weeks. The same person who spent months evaluating a decision suddenly wants to see results. They forget, Rome was not built in a day.