Reconnecting the flooded and unflooded worlds

Just seven days ago I started to write a blog about franchise disaster planning, but could not finish it at the time because news of floodwaters approaching my home was too distracting.

Today, the flood threat has passed and my home avoided disaster – just.

Now I find myself living between two worlds – the flooded and the unflooded.

In the unflooded world at one end of my street, homes have electricity and people go about their daily lives. They go to work in the morning, and perhaps in the late afternoon when they come home they mow their lawns, walk their dogs or cook a barbeque. Life seems very normal and predictable.

At the other end of my street, there are houses filled with stinking mud, where the stain of the waterline across their upper floors shows the height of the floodwaters.

Inside, the houses look as if some kind of bomb has exploded. Ceilings have collapsed under the weight of water-logged insulation and plasterboard, exposing beams, wires and plumbing above. Furniture lies at all angles and on top of each other as it floated around and then resettled as the water receded. Possessions are strewn across the floors, but are often unrecognisable due to the thick brown slimy mud that covers everything.

Shell-shocked homeowners stand quietly sobbing at the ruin of their lives and homes, while friends, family and complete strangers who have come to help are gobsmacked by the level of destruction.

And as the clean-up begins, an ever-growing pile of muddied possessions and building materials reaches higher and higher on the footpath, waiting for disposal. Couches, fridges, washing machines, clothes, lawnmowers, books, stereos, framed pictures and other items all wait in stinking piles to be removed.

At this end of the street there is no electricity, and the air is filled with the constant roar of generators and the screaming hiss of high-pressure water cleaners, broken by the occasional shouts of homeowners or volunteers to remove this wall, or pull down the remains of that ceiling, and so on.

The rebuilding process is one that is and will be just as confronting as the flood itself, because repairing the flood damage in most homes requires the property to be stripped of its internal walls and reduced to a skeleton. Wet plasterboard must be removed to prevent future crumbling problems, smell and mould. Skirting boards, architraves and cornices which help finish plasterboard walls and ceilings must also come out. So too must water damaged chipboard items, such as laminated kitchen benches, bathroom vanities, built-in wardrobes and others.

Even the floor panels in some houses need to be replaced as the moisture causes them to buckle, or for structural glues to weaken and become unsafe.

Faced with the total devastation of their properties, these homeowners now need to collect whatever could be saved from the floods, and find somewhere else to live knowing that it might be months or even years before they can return to their homes. Compounding the stress of rebuilding their homes will be the knowledge for many that their insurance won’t cover the full cost of their losses, or perhaps won’t cover any costs at all. For some, the cost to rebuild may be too great and cause them to walk away, or take so long to earn the money to pay for repairs that their quality of life will be miserable in the meantime.

With 75% of Queensland declared a disaster zone, and floods now spreading in New South Wales, Victoria and Western Australia, it is highly likely that anyone who lives in the non-flood world will know at least one person whose home or business has been flooded.

What is difficult for those who live in the non-flood world to understand is the sense of violation, desolation, anger and hopelessness that many who have been flooded will now be feeling. Despite the stoic soundbites of “She’ll be right” and “We’ll rebuild” that the television news shows when interviewing flood victims, much of this is hollow bravado because they don’t know if they will be right, or if they can (or have the strength) to rebuild.

This means that offers of assistance to those in the flood world are not enough. Offers require that a traumatised person must think rationally to process the relative benefits of the offer, and either accept or decline. Given that the default setting for most people is to decline an unsolicited offer, such offers of assistance may be well-intentioned but amount to little.

For those in the non-flood world, the best way to help is not through offers of assistance, but through action. This has already been evident in Brisbane with the Mud Army of volunteers who turned out in their thousands last weekend to help the flooded clear mud and debris from their homes.

With some exceptions, it is likely that franchisors and their head offices exist in the non-flood world, while many of their franchisees now find themselves flooded or flood affected (perhaps through the loss of electricity, the loss of access to parts of their trade area or customer base, or even the disruption to supply chains and staff attendance).

The flood disasters around the nation now present an opportunity for franchisors to rehumanise in recognition of the cost and trauma to their franchisees, as their franchisees and staff deal come to grips with life in the flood world.

So what is meant by rehumanise? In any business relationship based around a written agreement between a franchisor and a franchisee, there is a risk that compliance with the written agreement becomes both the minimum and the maximum required under the relationship, and any deviation may lead to conflict.

But when exceptional circumstances such as a flooding disaster of this magnitude occurs, the game changes altogether. Now more than ever, franchisors and franchisees need to move beyond the strict wording of their agreements if they are to support one another in both the short and long term. Offers of assistance however, may not be enough, and franchisors who show leadership, action and extraordinary compassion through this crisis will emerge with stronger and fiercely loyal networks as a result.

This leadership, action and compassion can be the bridge that reconnects more strongly than ever franchising’s flooded and unflooded worlds.

Jason Gehrke is the director of the Franchise Advisory Centre and has been involved in franchising for nearly 20 years at franchisee, franchisor and advisor level. He advises both potential  and existing franchisors and franchisees, and conducts franchise education programs throughout Australia, and publishes Franchise News & Events, a fortnightly email news bulletin on franchising issues and trends.