One of my all-time favorite movies is The Darkest Hour. Gary Oldham stars in it as Winston Churchill, who is called by King George to lead the United Kingdom during perhaps the UK’s darkest hour as they are forced to face the advancing Nazi military machine. You’ve probably seen the movie, but if you haven’t, I highly recommend it.

I don’t know if the movie is historically accurate on every point, but there’s a scene where Winston Churchill is debating in his mind over whether to inform the UK public about the stark truth of the strength and progress of the German military machine as it advances through Europe and threatens the UK.

The Prime Minister had to weigh whether he should keep a positive face before the public and spin the truth, or to plainly come clean about the threat of Hitler’s advance.

As a leader of a nation, state, meat company, or even a family, when is the appropriate time to project positivity and withhold some of the facts about how bad things really are to maintain morale? Or when is it better to be totally transparent as a leader and inform the people with the honest truth?

It’s interesting that the current administration has opted to project false positives by continuing to deny that we’re in a recession (even if they have to redefine the term). This is classic gaslighting, especially in light of the fact that practically every economist and practically everyone’s experience clearly indicates that we have definitely entered into what will probably become a long-term recession.

As only one indicator of many, over the past few months I’ve seen many restaurants ‘trading down.’ By that I mean they’re wanting to give up an ounce on their burgers, or change from white meat to dark meat, or they’re looking for any way they can to save money on food costs. The rising cost of labor and the rising costs of operating a restaurant, coupled with the decline in customers over the past few months by some operators has led them to become desperate to spend less on food supply. It’s either lower food costs or raise prices. Many are forced to do both in this economy.

For instance, I have a great customer who has several restaurants that for years served their landmark burger blend that contained choice brisket in the mix. But they had to give up their special recipe recently and ‘trade down’ to a burger made with no brisket to save on food costs.

I have other customers that are reducing the size of boneless skinless breast meat portions on their chicken sandwiches or are leaving the premium deli meats they buy for cheaper options.

Are you seeing this trading down trend with your food service customers?

Clearly the recession we’re entering isn’t currently the darkest hour of American history, but the reason for the movie analogy is to ask whether you think leaders should always be transparent or should they sometimes stay ‘positive’ and withhold some of the facts?

You might remember in The Darkest Hour when Churchill decides to meet with some of the UK citizens. As he talks to everyday common folks, he learns a valuable lesson — that the people would rather know the truth and face the evil of Hitler and fight back, than live in fear and potentially lose their country.

This experience helps Churchill gain the resolve he needs to return to his world of bureaucracy and politics and lead the nation through their crisis by not backing down to the Germans.

What about you? Would you rather know the facts about how bad things really are, or do you think it’s better to have your leaders smile at their podiums and dispense half-truths to keep the citizenry from worrying too much about how much worse things could get?

Perhaps if the leaders of our nation would occasionally leave the DC Beltway or the big cities they spend most of their time in and visit the working class common folks in our county, they’d learn a few things about American citizens – that, like the people of WWII in the UK, we would also rather have the whole truth about the status of our nation than some sticky sugar-coated spin-candy.

In my view, we don’t need nannies; we need real leaders who are willing to deal head-on with real issues.

Trading down in a recession

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