Making Adaptability a Core Value for Resilience

2024 has been another year of uncertainty in the economy as increased interest rates continue to impact markets. Negative messaging in the Presidential race has not helped. Now is the perfect time for companies to build positive culture messaging through an emphasis of the organization’s core values. Clarity of vision and strategies reminds employees of what their individual contribution could be despite uncertainty. This positive message may help counteract negativity plaguing the major press circuit and work to build a culture of resilience.

To take on the challenge of positive messaging in an uncertain environment, we suggest the following steps:

• Review your mission statement and core values statement. Are they still valid or do they need updating? It is critical that these messages be relevant to today’s environment and reflect the company’s status in the market.
• Link the values and mission to recent company performance by referencing success or failure in operational and financial performance compared to KPI goals. (If you do not have KPI goals, refer to actual events such as new products/services, new employee growth, new clients, and revenue growth.)
• Link values and mission to individual departments within the company to show the contributions among employee teams in driving the impact of values, mission, and KPIs for company success.
• Show employees examples of adaptability and resilience as included in company core values.
• If possible, show employees examples of individual employees’ successful use of company values.

Adaptability is a shared skill in company management and processes. It is a skill that results from planning and making alternative plans for pivoting when changes in markets, regulations, or the economy make Plan A unachievable. Those multiple plans should have a commonality across alternatives through core values, mission statement, and core goals.

Building alternate, detailed indicators that recognize the need to change strategy, aka “pivot points”, strengthens adaptability. By setting these key metrics (both operational and financial measures), employees know what to expect and how to change their focus on the job. Confidence in a plan and management’s ability to observe market changes supports greater adaptability. We suggest the following steps to build adaptability within your company:

• Examine how your company is performing against a plan (annual budget) YTD and ask if performance can improve. This is a key question even when you are doing well.
• Look at how your market may change in the next 18-24 months and consider if maintaining status quo will be the best strategy.
• Set three plans for the next 12-18 months based on three scenarios: a revenue decline of 15%, revenue steady and margin decline 10%, and revenue increase of 10% and margins sustainable.
• Set action steps to respond to change in each scenario. Communicate these steps/plans to all groups so they may be ready to act. Preparedness drives adaptability.
• Adaptability and thoroughness of alternative plans drive resilience.

A core value of adaptability gives confidence to teams and individual performers throughout a company. This is most often seen in sports during the playoff season. Build your adaptability and resilience for the playoffs!

C Squared Solutions provides interim or fractional CFOs, COOs, and CEO advisors in nearly all industries. We mentor and advise private companies frequently through sophisticated and experienced management advisory. Give us a call or visit our website for more information and details. We have been there and done that through serving more than one hundred companies, 250 years of combined experience, and having sold our companies totaling more than $500 million!