Smart Business Strategy Finds Time and Space for Adaptability

Many different topics pop on when business owners are musing a wish list of skills they wished there people had, but adaptability is not generally one of them. In fact, adaptability could easily be a key factor in solving the constraints most businesses have, but usually solutions are seen as revolving around sweating more, and getting more done, and getting things done on time, and working faster and more productively... these do not fit so well when considering the virtues of adaptability.

Adaptability as a virtue revolves around change, and change is the antithesis of getting more done. But when technology is changing the world and how people buy stuff and how people discover what they want to buy and how people figure out what they need and what they want; doing things the same old way is only going to work so long.

Lessons to Learn from Evolution Survival of the Fittest is a concept from Charles Darwin we can all learn from. Charles said  animals evolved because of pressure on the species. It was not the strongest that survived, it was not the dominant species that survived, but the species  most adaptable to change.  What does this mean to you? If you are a small company growing, you can take heart that some of your big competitors are going to be quite happy to continue doing what has brought them success in the past, and not adapt well to the future; and you can grow and thrive by being smart and strategic.  If you are a dominant company now, I am hoping this note jars you out of complacency and helps you understand you cannot rest on your laurels but be developing your adapting skills

Understanding the virtues of keeping eyes open, being adaptable to change, paying attention on what is going on around you, being patient and bringing your team along to learn new skills and work at innovation, even if there is some failure; needs to be seen as a virtue. Time spent learning to adapt to new technologies, experimenting with new processes is a virtue, and a team of people used to taking time to be creative and innovative is a virtue.

This is vs the standard industrial thinking - centering activities around what works the best to get production done right now, and keeping the shoulder to the wheel and producing... this is the industrial mindset, keep doing more of what is working now and get those number up every quarter.

You may have discovered my ulterior motive, 
I want more businesses to understand the critical value of content creation and to find the space in the work schedule to facilitate it. But beyond my ulterior motive, nurturing the skill to be looking for ways to improve processes and taking the time to engage with change and be adaptable is a basic business strategy.

The problem is creativity takes effort and time and effort away from what makes money racks the lizard brain and time away from production costs real money. It is much easier to feel the cost of being adaptable that figuring out the intangible cost of staying put where you are.

Seth Godin is quite eloquent about the struggle between deciding to spend time being frustrated learning something new and just staying with the status quo.

The problem with evaluating the first fifteen minutes of frustration is that we easily forget about the 5,000 minutes of leverage that frustration earns us if we stick it out. 

This might be a good time to check out his point. Now he is speaking more to the individual artist or craftsman but it does not take genius to carry his point over to the entire team. The First 15 Minutes

The business environment right now is a good time for keeping one's eyes open as things change. You need to understand what is happening and the implications of those changes.

You need to understand what is attracting people and interconnections and figure out how to participate authentically there. You need to know who you want to talk to and figure out where they spend their time in social media. And you need to do it well. Useless and boring is as bad as not being there.

There is an art to using social media effectively. You have to understand where the people you want to meet, hang out and figure out how to contribute there with real value and make some new friends. You actually have to spend time and do some study to understand how any social media tool is used effectively or have someone you trust help you figure out how to use it effectively.

You also need time to discern well enough to miss the BS and innovate around Fundamentals, not be talked into the latest fad technology that will fade into the vapor. Innovation brought to you by sales people offering easy and effortless ways to do what you know takes effort, is BS.

The best example I see are creative ways to create worthless content. Lots of people are hired who turn brain farts into florid text, and rehash existing content online into new hash. Some even turn to other countries to find writing talent to create content. People are even working on content written by machines. Would not that makes things easy?

Optimizing technologies to aid the human hand, technologies to help with SEO and to sort keywords and phrases cannot turn worthless rehashed content into something useful. In the end, people have to read what you say and like it and respond. A back button is the ultimate exit from boring and useless.

you also need to be beware the fads in web design. That feature that everyone has. let me just pick on one in particular. I hate carousels. This new technology popped up a few years ago and most websites have this feature because it looks cool to the owner. I beat up on carousels here. 

Here is a really big deal. And I put it last because it was not about content creation. There are just the greatest software apps available today to help make all kinds of human activities easier. There are creat CRM systems for keeping track of prospects and customers and projects. There are great ways to communicate with the staff and staff with each other, to keep everyone on the same page at the same time, on whatever smart device they are using.

Such software takes the sweat of working with images, and creating content, and leaves the fun part; commenting and creating and telling stories.

Then the other side of the coin is learning to use the technology well. You probably know people who do not know how to use the power of their own word processor or their own spreadsheet and database engine. When you use a handy tool, like a hammer, you have reduced the handy tool to the level of a hammer and it probably functions poorly as a hammer. We talk about using software well here. 

And this gets back to Seth Godin theme above; do not let the little bit of work required to learn and leverage a sophisticated tool from helping you reap the added leverage of using the tool well.

Adaptability in the modern world is essential for survival. It is in the spirit of Daniel Boone who mosied into Kentucky paying attention to where he was going to stay out of trouble with the bears and stay out of trouble with the rightful property owners.

Smart business owners must learn to relax a little more and allow the space and time- i.e. slack to give people room to think, to innovate, to try new ideas.... we must become adaptable to change because change is coming and it is better to relish it and be near the front of the parade.

Being adaptable keeps you aware of the change in the winds and help you adjust to forces at work and keeps you on course.

OK, who has a thought here? What kind of experiences have you had that touch on the subject?