How to Make Your Business More Flexible During Uncertainty

“The best plans of mice and men / gang aft a-gley,” wrote the Scottish poet Robert Burns. Even the best, most thought-out plans sometimes have to be put aside for reasons beyond your control.

In times of uncertainty, flexibility is one of the most important qualities for any company.

With a willingness to adjust plans, deviate from the original strategy, and make small or large pivots, your business can be more resilient in stormy weather.

If your company is faced with uncertainty and the path ahead is unclear, here’s how you can be more flexible about your plans, projects and strategies in order to master them.

This is how you can make your company flexible in times of uncertainty

Accept what you need to move or change.

If the landscape of your company suddenly changed, you need to make changes within your company as well. This is especially true when you need to cut budgets and make sure it is spent in the places with the highest return on investment.

Look at all of the projects in your pipeline and assess what really needs to be prioritized now, what can be postponed, and what can be discarded.

Encourage every department in your company to ask:

• Is now the best time for the projects we are focusing on?
• Should we adjust our content and communications to get the most benefit to our audience?
• Is our budget in place or do we need to change the allocations?
• Would team members offer the most value if they worked on different priorities?
• Which pivots should we do?

Even in times of prosperity, if your business is experiencing higher churn or lower profits, you may need to rethink some goals, or at least adjust expectations.

Identify where your focus is most valuable.

Now that you’ve reevaluated the projects your company is working on, it’s time to look at your own to-do list.

Ask yourself: With a focus on an hour, a day, a week, or a month, where can I add the most value?

Even if you can’t predict the future, there are ways to think about how best to spend your time now. Make sure your agenda is focused on the most important tasks instead of the busy work that ends up on your desk.

Maintain transparency with your team.

When your company or industry is going through turbulence, maintaining strong communication with your team is more important than ever.

In order to maintain the trust that is essential for a focused and happy team, make sure that the leadership is honest and transparent about where your company is right now, the most important goals for the time ahead and the current challenges.

A transparent and committed team is essential for a resilient company that can survive times of change.

Embrace different styles of work.

Building a resilient and flexible company requires a willingness to do things differently than you did before. You may need to adopt new ways of working instead of saying stubbornly “But that’s how we’ve always done things.”

This can include adapting to different work styles, such as: B. Remote working – which may even be a necessity for many companies. To help your team get used to working remotely, think about team-wide guidelines that you can put in place to encourage greater focus, wellbeing, and productivity.

These can include:

• Introduction of remote control-friendly apps for video calls
• Introduction of a company-wide communication tool like Slack
• Schedule remote meetings to connect with your team and share information
• Encouraging team members to focus on their mental health and wellbeing

Reinforce the foundations.

When your company is less preoccupied with new leads and projects, it’s a good time to focus on strengthening the basics so you are in the best position when things pick up again.

Take a look at the important tasks that are often overlooked, such as improving contact management processes or introducing automated workflows to make your team more efficient.

You can also use this as an opportunity to review your tech stack and identify weaknesses and areas for improvement.

Some questions about optimizing your tech stack are:

• Which apps do we pay for that don’t add value?
• Could certain apps be replaced with free tools?
• Do we have overlapping tools?
• Where can I find ways to integrate data between apps to increase productivity?

Times of uncertainty are challenging for any business, but the right level of flexibility and resilience can help your business weather the storm.