Organising for uncertainty

A few businesses are thriving and a few are abandoning ship.  Most businesses, however, are somewhere in-between. The difference between the thriving businesses and the “in-betweeners” is not as great as people imagine. Changing the fortune of your business requires some simple shifts in behaviour that can dramatically change the outcome.

They are the small hinges that swing big doors, and you are surrounded by them.

Successful businesses thrive in uncertain times because they are organised differently. From the outside, they demonstrate an ability to adapt and pivot rapidly. So rapidly, that it might seem that they are able to predict the future.

The real difference is that these businesses are organised differently from other businesses. How their people connect and communicate with each other is more structured and guided by clear principles. This gives management certainty that the work of the company will get done and confidence in their people.

It comes down to having a clear vision and clear guiding principles.

You don’t have to be a big business to have strong guiding principles. And having strong principles does not mean that you can’t change direction. In fact the stronger your principles, the quicker you can adapt.

Your business principles are not made of bricks and mortar, they are built with your mindset, your behaviour, your values, your beliefs and how you communicate them and your relationships. They enable the culture and organisational intelligence that is your business.

When you have strong, clear principles, your view of the world changes and that’s when you can see the opportunity in uncertainty.

The reality of life is that everything is uncertain. We can’t predict the future because there are too many variables. However, we can improve our perception of the environment around us so that we can detect minuscule changes before anyone else knows something is afoot.

This pandemic has demonstrated very clearly that we live in uncertain times and your success or failure is not just reliant on you. Your suppliers still need to be able to supply you and your customers still need to be able to buy from you. Your business is part of a complex interconnected ecosystem where everything is connected and influenced by everything in the ecosystem.

Your perception of the circumstances surrounding your supply chain and your customers is what will enable you to adapt and pivot your business. What state will your suppliers and customers be in after one, three and twelve months? 

Business Intelligence Framework

The question, therefore, is how can you improve your perception of your market niche? How can you improve your business intelligence? What can you measure?

Remove obstacles - You must identify and remove the obstacles that prevent collaboration, the flow of information, suppress innovation and prevent curiosity. Every person from the CEO to the front line employees can contribute to organisational intelligence. It is the single most powerful asset in the business.

Factual – Use data, not guesswork, supposition or assumptions. If you need to make decisions make sure that you know the current REALITY and not some massaged form of it. Check your sources to make sure that they are accurate and reliable. If possible, confirm one source of data with another.

Clarity of thought – Have a clear vision of the direction of travel and speak it at every opportunity. The less clarity, the higher the possibility of failure. Once you are clear about the direction you are going, focus on gathering intelligence for that journey. Go deep and get an understanding of everything happening in your market, and in your business.

Courage – Dealing with potential doom and gloom or even raging success can be frightening. (Yes, as many people fear success as failure). Don’t let F.E.A.R, False Evidence Appearing Real derail you. You need to know how to interpret the voice in your head, your Lizard Brain. Know what you stand for and hold your position. Courage is not the absence of fear, it is the ability to recognise that you are fearful and continue to act.

Integrity – internally and externally even to the point of transparency. The worst thing a business can do is rely on “spin” to cover over the cracks. Your customers, suppliers, stakeholders all know what’s going on, so trying to “fake it” will not work. Internally, enable curiosity and innovation, breakdown barriers and create systems to help everyone contribute to the future.

What are the foundations for a successful business?

To give your business the best chance of emerging from this extraordinary world we are currently experiencing, there are some core foundations that you must focus on:

• Become Innovative– The economic circumstances will change rapidly over the next six months. Businesses that are inflexible and organised for predictability and certainty will struggle to adapt fast enough.  Enable innovative processes and encourage curiosity at all levels.
• Your Offer – knowing how your customers’ wants and needs have changed will enable you to adjust your offer to better suit their demands today. Do you need to change how you deliver your product, service or experience and are there new opportunities that arise from that change?
• Customer Intelligence – businesses that assume that their customers’ requirements have not changed are reckless. Businesses that assume that their customers’ motivations have not changed are arrogant. Deepening your understanding of the emotional state of your customers is a vital exercise for keeping abreast of the changes in your market niche.  Assuming that your niche has changed the same way as other niches, is risky.
• Cash flow – how many things have changed that could affect your cash flow on a daily basis?  The list grows longer daily. Being sensitive to those changes ahead of time and preparing for different scenarios will enable you to be more flexible. Understanding the knock-on potential of different events outside of your control will be important. Making sure you are creating reserves is also critical.
• Service – be of service to your niche market. The businesses that have flourished throughout the pandemic have delivered exactly what their customers wanted. Serve, serve, serve and you will be rewarded.

There are no crystal balls out there. The doom-mongers and the optimists are all wrong to a degree. Over the coming months, we will find out how wrong.  You need to keep your finger on the pulse of your niche market. Get inside your customers’ head, really understand what they want and need and then deliver it. 

Engage your whole team, everyone, and organise for innovation and intelligence. Be flexible, play the long game and make sure you have the reserves to weather the potential storms ahead. Plan for the worst, expect the worst and everything will be an upside.

Avoid being sucked in by the negative news, avoid succumbing to the F.E.A.R. (false evidence appearing real) and get accurate data, real evidence to use as your guide. Measure your progress towards your goals, reflect and learn from your experience, adjust your thinking, behaviour and processes accordingly and keep taking the next step.

Business is not exciting. For the most part, it is the repetition of simple tasks over and over again that, in the end, help you reach your goal.  Creating an innovative organisation brings the excitement of surprises, new thinking, new collaborations.

Your business is unique because you created it. It is unique because of the combination of all of the individual intelligence connected together to create your organisational intelligence. 

Comparing yourself to someone else is futile and can only lead to self-criticism. Work on your organisation and organise for innovation that will continually expand the organisational intelligence.

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