Stop calling it recovery! Business needs a different word

Jamaica Gleaner | 2025-12-07 | Original Article

If you are a CEO in Jamaica, you could be using the wrong vocabulary. Like many, you are talking about “recovery”: getting back to where you were before the hurricane. But here’s some data: Sony didn’t “recover” after Japan’s post-war devastation....

 

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If you are a CEO in Jamaica, you could be using the wrong vocabulary.

 

Like many, you are talking about “recovery”: getting back to where you were before the hurricane. But here’s some data: Sony didn’t “recover” after Japan’s post-war devastation. Indonesia didn’t “recover” after the 2004 tsunami.

 

Instead, they did something fundamentally different.

 

The word matters because ‘recovery’ assumes your old business model was viable. It wasn’t. That’s why you’re calculating hurricane damage for the third time this decade.

 

To escape the trap, our organizations and country need a new destination - a Vision 2050 Jamaica, perhaps. But it won’t be about recovering; it’s about finally admitting that what we have been recovering ‘to’ since October 28 is the actual problem.

 

Let me be direct: if your post-Melissa strategic plan says “restore operations to pre-hurricane levels”, you’re planning to fail again.

 

Recovery language creates a dangerous illusion. It suggests there is a golden era we need to return to, a time when the business was humming, customers were happy, and growth was steady. Then the hurricane hit and disrupted everything.

 

But that’s fiction.

 

The truth most Jamaican CEOs know but won’t say out loud: Their businesses had fundamental vulnerabilities long before Melissa made landfall. The hurricane didn’t create your problems. It revealed them.

 

For example, you already knew your supply chain was too dependent on a single shipping route. You already knew your physical infrastructure couldn’t handle severe weather. You already knew your cash reserves were too thin. You already knew your employees’ digital capabilities were years behind competitors’.

 

The hurricane just made these truths undeniable.

 

So when you talk about recovery, what are you actually recovering to? A fragile business model? An outdated strategy? An eroded competitive position? A stale work culture?

 

That’s not a plan. That’s a delusion.

 

Let’s look at what organisations that got this transition right actually did.

 

Sony, Post-War Japan: When Sony emerged from the devastation of World War II, they didn’t try to rebuild Japan’s pre-war electronics industry. That industry was based on cheap labour and imitation of Western products. Instead, Sony’s founders asked a different question: “What could Japan become if we built for the world that’s coming?”

 

They invested in miniaturisation technology when everyone said radios had to be large. When the market didn’t exist, they pioneered the transistor radio. As Japan was rebuilding roads, they built global distribution.

 

Sony didn’t recover; they transformed into something their pre-war selves couldn’t have imagined.

 

In fact, when Bulova proposed a massive deal in 1955, co-founder Akio Morita said: “If we accept, they will be promoting the Bulova name. In five years, no one will remember Sony. But if I spend 50 years selling Sony-branded products, I will build a brand that lasts for decades.”

 

Indonesia, post-tsunami: After the 2004 tsunami devastated Aceh province, the Indonesian government didn’t just rebuild the fishing villages that were destroyed. They relocated communities to higher ground, created early warning systems and diversified local economies away from single-industry dependence.

 

The new Aceh wasn’t a recreation of the old one. It was designed for a future where tsunamis would happen again, but with radically different outcomes.

 

New Orleans, post-Katrina (a counter example): What happens when you choose recovery over transformation? Look at New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina.

 

Twenty years later, the city remains vulnerable to the same threats. All because they recovered to a past that was never sustainable.

 

Here’s what transformational thinking looks like in practice: Instead of asking, ‘How do we get back to normal?’ you pose a different question: ‘If we were building this business from scratch in 2024, knowing what we know about climate, technology, and markets, what would we build?’

 

For our country, that question can lead somewhere specific: Vision 2050 Jamaica.

 

We are all aware that the Vision 2030 Jamaica project is almost at an end. As the Prime Minister stated, many of its original aspirations are beyond our reach. We won’t become a developed country in the remaining years.

 

However, it did plant the seeds of our next national plan.

 

Today, we now need a ‘Vision 2050 Jamaica’ that is so hard-hitting, it isn’t about recovery. Instead, it should push us to define what a mid-century, resilient country looks like. And it should be detailed enough for us to work backwards to make today’s decisions.

 

Finally, it should be transformative. Not just restorative.

 

In this sense, Melissa offers us a rare opportunity to be led by a new future that is suited for the harsh realities of now.

 

 

Francis Wade is a management consultant and author of Perfect Time-Based Productivity. To search past columns on productivity, strategy and business processes, or give feedback, email: columns@fwconsulting.com

 

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