Join Host, Megan Spicer, and Partner, Jami Johnson, as they discuss business resilience and grit, two of their favorite topics, in today’s episode. We are talking about business resilience, how to build it up and the characteristics you need to keep it going.
What we cover in this episode:
- 01:47 – Adapting & Innovation
- 06:12 – Connections & Relationships
- 10:25 – Perception is Everything
- 16:04 – Resources to Nurture Your Way to Resilience
Adapting & Innovation
What is business resilience? “Resilience is one of those things that I think it’s a really natural trait, and it’s not about having it or not having it, I think it’s to what degree we have it.” People have business resilience in some areas while others have it in different areas of their business, using it is what’s important. Most business owners have to acquire resilience, which can be done in many ways.
Being able to leverage your strengths and your team’s strengths will help prepare you for challenges that come your way. As a business owner, you want to build a strong team; when events hit unexpectedly, like COVID, you can pivot, adapt, and innovate where necessary.
Being able to adapt and innovate when challenges arise is important to the long term success of your business. When these events do take place, whether you adapt the right or wrong way, it can still be a lesson. Learning from your success and the failures builds up the business resilience you need to continue to grow your business.
Connections & Relationships
Part of building up your business resiliency is building your connections and relationships. Looking to see how your mentors or the professionals you admire have handled situations that come their way, good or bad, you can take this information and build on it. Seeing how they have adapted to challenges and changes in their business, gives you a leg up on how to handle situations when they arise. This slowly starts to lay the foundation of business resilience.
Not only do these relationships matter, but building strong relationships with your team is highly recommended. When situations arise, the relief you can feel knowing you have a strong and reliable team will make all the difference in being able to get through the challenge. You need to build these bonds way before they are needed to be relied on.
This is where communication and listening comes into play. Making sure you are listening, reacting, acknowledging your team members and taking care of them will pay off. Become proactive with communicating and sensing when your teammates feel off instead of waiting until it is too late. These bonds build the business resiliency needed to not break in hard times.
Perception is Everything
“Realistically looking at your perception of things like, am I being too negative… Am I being too positive about something? This is where your relationships with people can be helpful… So kind of stepping back outside of yourself and realizing that your perception is just that, it’s not always the reality of what’s happening.”
Sometimes we are our own worst enemy when it comes to our perception of ourselves, our business and even our team. Being a business owner, you may always feel that you could be doing something better or something more when it comes to building your business and this may not always be true.
As Megan said, your relationships with mentors and team members can be helpful in the perception realm. Asking their input and advice on how things seem to be going can help hone in on the reality of what needs to be corrected or needs to remain the same. Being open to this type of constructive feedback or criticism not only will help in building your business and your business resiliency, but also you as a business owner.
Resources to Nurture Your Way to Resilience
There are many, many resources available to help guide you through tough times. Two of the best ones we have found and relied on are, The Comfort Crisis by Michael Easter and Grit by Angela Duckworth. These two books not only give you the information to build resilience on a personal level but to build business resilience as well.
The Comfort Crisis gives you a reality check on how most people have become too comfortable in life. Becoming comfortable and not experiencing discomfort in situations is a factor in why business resilience and resilience in life can be so rare. Learning to put yourself in difficult and uncomfortable situations can make all the difference in the long run. This gives you the opportunity to conquer hard things and learn experience for future situations.
Grit by Angela Duckworth gives us insight on why some people make it in business and why others might not. The conclusion is that if the person resembles grit, they are most likely to become successful in the field they chose. This is because they don’t give themselves an option on whether or not they will make it happen. Having “skin in the game” and making success the only available option, builds up the resilience they need to get to where they want.
Conclusion
So what is business resilience after all? Business resilience is the ability to get things done no matter what the situation is and no matter how hard it will be. Although they say some people are born with the grit or determination to get what they want, it doesn’t mean if you weren’t born with it, then you can’t get it done. Building resilience can be done with the help of others around you and with developing your mindset. “You can do hard things.”
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