Hard Decisions

 There come times when there is a clear need for change. This need sometimes creeps up on you slowly, sometimes hurtling like a train. Regardless, it is time for hard decisions, whether to continue on the current path or not. 

MSCH had a situation like this in 2020, just before we pivoted to large scale Covid-19 RTPCR diagnostics.  At that time, we had very little experience with processes or operations or management. But there were desire, ambition, and a set of mentors who were extremely stringent on quality and integrity and who were willing to give their time and guidance. To a large extent, MSCH was able to envision and enact this change because of its core team of Poorva Huilgol, Rekha Godbole and myself. We relied on each other heavily and managed fairly complex and fast-evolving projects successfully.

Now the Covid phase has been over for about 15 months.  MSCH is facing another of those pivotal moments. This time, the baggage the company carries, in terms of infrastructure, people, the samples that have frozen and stored over many years, the various projects initiated but not completed, is much heavier.  MSCH maintained a steady state for the past many months and the urge to continue the status quo is overwhelming. 

But a steady state held for too long becomes decay. And there have been signs that MSCH cannot continue on its current path if it intends not only to survive but thrive in the future. 

So it is with a mixture of trepidation and optimism that we have taken a few hard decisions: we will no longer keep our stand-alone labs. We will focus only on in-sourcing and installing labs within existing entities. We will let go of practically all our staff to bring down our outflows to less than 1L per month. This will provide us some breathing space to stabilize financially and regroup for the next phase.

There are a few things different between the last pivot to this one:

a) The push and the crisis were external last time. It's always harder to validate pivots and tough decisions when it isn't obvious to the outside world! 

b) Then, we had to up-size. Here we are down-sizing, which is always perceived negatively. 

Perhaps this pivot is more like our move from the US to India. 

Personally, I find myself vacillating quite a bit about all this:
- There have been moments of great tension- such as when I told the lab about the closing down and laying off.
- Then, the rather longer-stretched  tensions and stresses of trying to place all the folks in equally good or better positions 
- Initially there was a huge spurt of joy when I felt I could step down from MSCH CEO-ship. It has been a long, memorable and proud journey but I rather like the idea of someone else taking the helm for a change. 
- And now there is a bit more stress when I try to figure out how to ensure my own salary, while enabling my growth and giving this chance the importance and thought it deserves. 

It has also helped me experience something that I have only ever heard about: the company should be the owner's asset, not the owner's master. It's slowly beginning to dawn on me that if one feels like they are working for themselves, then one can never feel like a slave. For some time now, I have felt like I have not been working for myself, that I need to make a certain amount of revenue just to maintain things.  By letting go of many crucial assets of MSCH, importantly its people, I feel like I can, for the first time in a long time, take a deep breath and say. I don't have to fight every month to make rent, revenues, salaries, name, fame, legacy... nothing. It's a stunning feeling of liberation.