How do you improve resilience and adaptability in business
The Adaptive Advantage: Strengthening Teams for Future Challenges
- What is ‘resilience in action’?
- Why are resilience and adaptability important in business?
- Adaptability and Resilience: 10 Essential Traits
- Examples of resilience in business
- How do you improve resilience and adaptability in business?
The current decade, 2023-2033, is being called a crisis period by economists. They’re predicting global risks like the cost of living crisis, geopolitical conflicts, and economic confrontations. The only constant is change, and we just have to adapt to it. We’re living in a world where instability is the new normal.
This is why resilience and adaptability are becoming the most important things we can bring to the table. Our ability to respond quickly, adapt to changes quickly, and recover quickly from shock events is crucial for moving forward successfully. Adaptive scenarios will help, no matter what kind of crisis you’re facing, whether it’s an individual or an entire corporation. Businesses are facing some pretty tough challenges right now, and they need to be flexible, adaptable, and resilient to get through them.
Since the pandemic, lots of business owners and managers have had to rethink their strategies and find new ways of working. In this article, we’ll look at these new norms and adaptive strategies to help you stay resilient in unstable times.
What is ‘resilience in action’?
First, let’s define the term “resilience,” which is a pretty common topic these days. Resilience is the ability of people, communities, governments, and systems to bounce back from negative impacts and keep growing despite environmental challenges. As the world gets more and more chaotic, being able to manage risks and show resilience is a key trait of a successful leader.
Roberta Rubin Greene, a Master of Medical Sciences and Ph.D. from the University of Texas at Austin, came up with the term “resilience in action.” She looked at the huge risks social workers faced during the pandemic and came up with a way to deal with stress that makes you more resilient (RESM). She used examples of people facing tough lives or tough environmental challenges.
“At the same time, social and sociocultural factors in the environment can act as protective factors that contribute to resilience, growth, and transformation,” she says in her work. (Greene, Roberta, Greene, Nancy, & Corley, Connie. (2023). Helping communities recover after a disruption. 10.1007/978-3-031-38518-6_11.
Resilience is like the ability to resist the effects of a storm, an earthquake, or any other kind of disruption. It allows a ship to resist the waves and regain its original position, a building to withstand an earthquake, and a pendulum to return to equilibrium. This metaphor can also apply to a group of people. Another study at Johns Hopkins University found that racing teams are resilient in extreme situations. They work together, navigate turns precisely, and support teammates to prevent breakdowns. The most resilient teams not only get through the tough times but also end up performing better.
Researchers compared the behavior of sports teams to processes in the business world, showing that during periods of change, it’s important to:
— Keep an eye on the market,
— Keep up with what’s going on,
— Watch out for how team members are doing,
— Make sure everyone’s workload is shared out so no one gets burned out or overwhelmed.
For both the team captain and the company leader, this helps them quickly adjust their efforts, change course according to reality, make smart decisions, and improve the team’s overall position.
In recent years, lots of businesses have gone through a lot of changes due to the pandemic, changes in how we work, and market demand fluctuations. Teams at all levels have shown they can adapt, which has helped organizations survive and even thrive.
Why are resilience and adaptability important in business?
The global business environment is always changing, so for a company to succeed, it has to be able to adapt. Another advantage in this ever-changing world is being able to adapt, which means being flexible and having a positive outlook.
Think about trees during a hurricane. The wind can knock over a century-old oak tree, but a flexible willow bends to the ground, showing it can handle a sudden storm.
Every team has oak-like and willow-like individuals who act differently in a crisis. The resilience of each team member determines whether the team will be able to weather a crisis, adapt to significant changes, and seize new opportunities for restructuring, strategy shifts, and success. As the old saying goes, “A chain is only as strong as its weakest link.”
Adaptability and Resilience: 10 Essential Traits
How can you tell if your team members can think clearly and act rationally in a tough situation? It’s important to focus on the qualities that recruiters say make truly resilient workers stand out.
1. Proactivity
Proactive employees don’t blame external circumstances for their fate; they take full responsibility. This approach helps them focus on what matters most, think before they act, and make decisions that will help them achieve their goals.
2. Openness
A flexible mind, open to new ideas and thinking outside the box, helps an employee act in an unconventional way during critical moments. These folks are quick to ditch ineffective strategies and ingrained habits. They’re not afraid to try new approaches, unlike conservatives who stick to old methods, hoping for new results.
3. Calm Attitude to Failures
Sometimes new paths don’t work out. But for flexible personalities, this is no big deal. People who can bounce back from setbacks know that the road to the top is paved with them. Losing is an important part of winning. Plus, these folks are driven to push themselves beyond their limits, develop new skills, and use new tools to solve problems. They turn the energy of failure into strength for a new leap. They view failure as just another experience. It’s better to try and fail, gain experience, than to be afraid and do nothing, which leads to stagnation. Mistakes are seen as a good thing by flexible managers. They help us to improve ourselves, become more resilient and adaptable, work more productively, and make better use of our time.
Another thing these valuable employees have in common is the habit of analyzing their actions, discarding outdated mechanisms, and quickly and easily testing new hypotheses.
4. Emotional Intelligence
Having a stable emotional state helps people to not be afraid of changes in life. People with a good grasp on their emotions are great at managing them because they know what they are and can express them in a way that’s ethical. They don’t see emotions as “good” or “bad,” and they don’t try to hide fear, shame, pain, or anger. Such people aren’t afraid to be real. They know that inspiration and energy can be drawn from any state during crises. Also, these folks are pretty resilient to external judgments. They react calmly to criticism and offer constructive criticism to themselves.
5. Clear Understanding of Boundaries
This helps resilient people stay out of depression and stress. They’re very aware of themselves and won’t agree to things that don’t suit them, don’t interest them, or don’t bring them joy. They’re not weighed down by other people’s expectations, so they can get things done. They can even pass the “marshmallow test” in the most critical moments of life. They’re more likely to invest in long-term relationships than immediate pleasures.
6. Goal Setting Skills
Setting specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound goals provides clear direction and motivation. This skill helps the team stay strong and united, even when things are changing and the going gets tough.
7. Self-Care Habit
Taking care of your physical, emotional, and nutritional needs not only improves your health, but also boosts your self-esteem. It’s important to take care of your body and mind if you want to be resilient, build your career faster, and get promoted more often. People who take care of themselves are more confident, and they have inner strength that helps them influence others in a positive way. Taking time to relax, reduce stress, and calm the mind can help us become more resilient and flexible.
8. Creativity
Creativity, or the ability to find new and different ways to solve problems, is a sign of flexibility. Even in non-creative professions, creative thinking is becoming a standard requirement. For instance, a programmer’s tasks might change during a project’s implementation. Being able to find simple, effective solutions that satisfy both old and additional requirements can literally save the project. The ability to find new ways to do things often helps not only at work but also in everyday life, like when you’re fixing something, traveling, or doing other usual processes.
9. Conscious Optimism
It’s important to be optimistic, but not to be naive. Life is full of destructive events and unpleasant people. Mental resilience and selective attention help us not to waste energy on things we can’t control. We can direct our energy towards more constructive tasks that we can solve. This approach helps you stay positive, not get caught up in other people’s negativity, and maintain your optimism and clear thinking. It also helps you look confidently into the future, spend your energy on achieving your goals, and develop yourself. This kind of behavior is a sign of resilience. It helps keep people motivated and gives them hope for a better outcome.
10. Communication Skills and Social Connections
To be resilient, it’s important to have a support system in place. A social network of friends, acquaintances, colleagues, and family members can be a great source of support in difficult times and can help you become more resilient. But you can’t form social connections without being curious, taking the initiative, actively listening, and being able to communicate at different levels.
The good news is that almost all of these signs of resilience and adaptability are skills that can be developed. So it’s important for a team leader to not only choose employees with these traits, but also to make sure they’re developing their soft skills. If you don’t have these skills, you’ll burn out fast when it comes to crisis management. It’ll be harder for the team to adapt to changes and stay positive.
Most people don’t like dealing with vague or confusing aspects of their work. When teams learn to feel more comfortable with uncertainty, they’ll be able to take the initiative in challenging situations.
Examples of resilience in business
There are lots of problems that can affect a company, including changes in logistics and supply chains, financial instability, forced changes in work formats, and shifting consumer behavior. These changes affect how the company runs, its finances, and the mood of the employees. While some of these things are out of our control, we can still work on maintaining a positive outlook, reorganizing the work environment, managing collective behavior, and thereby enhance the company’s resilience at multiple levels, including actions, skills, behavior, and team relationships.
Work-Life Balance
Thanks to technology, employees can work from anywhere at any time. But having constant access to work can make it hard to know where work ends and home begins. The companies that succeed are the ones that don’t push for 24/7 productivity and actively prevent burnout.
Forbes’ list of the world’s best employers is full of companies that are great at keeping going when things get tough and that think about what their employees need. Take Samsung Electronics, for instance. They’ve been ranked No. 1 in 2023 for the fourth year in a row. They support their employees by expanding growth opportunities. The company puts a lot of emphasis on making remote work comfortable, giving employees meaningful tasks, developing the community, and creating a safe, inclusive environment. Their health infrastructure, which includes psychological consultations, clinics, and fitness centers, helps employees work to their fullest potential and feel proud of their workplace.
Uniting Employees from Different Locations and Time Zones
It can be tough to bring together employees from all over the world and in different time zones. A company like Microsoft knows that its employees need to keep growing and staying connected, even when they’re working remotely. The company uses its own tools to help teams work together, so it’s like one big, happy family. Research shows that 93% of employees feel confident in their ability to work together as one team, regardless of their location.
Seizing the Moment and Making the Most of New Opportunities during a Crisis
Even in tough times, there are ways to turn things around. By changing up your business model and finding new markets, you can turn disadvantages into advantages. This is only for companies that go beyond just trying to limit the damage and instead proactively build up their ability to adapt and become more resilient. For instance, during the 2020 pandemic, when most cinemas closed, Netflix saw a surge in demand for home entertainment and gained 16 million new subscribers, almost doubling the previous year’s results.
Stay Strong and Flexible for Business Success
Resilience and adaptability are more than just bouncing back from challenges. It’s about being ready for what’s to come, being quick to respond, and still doing well even when things get tough. For businesses, resilience means being able to weather the storm, bounce back from setbacks, and seize any opportunities for growth.
The examples above show why companies that approach challenges positively survive and thrive in a volatile business climate. The most resilient and adaptable teams tend to succeed more often than those that are rigid and unwilling to change.
How do you improve resilience and adaptability in business?
Here are some strategies to help team leaders maintain resilience and adaptability:
Implementing Flexible Work Models
Design thinking is a great way to solve complex problems. It helps you understand what users need and come up with creative solutions. This method helps companies stay flexible by coming up with lots of different ideas that let them respond to changes in the market.
Agile Methodology: Agile is a flexible project management approach that breaks large projects into smaller, more manageable tasks or sprints, with each one delivering value. Agile is all about collaboration and feedback. It lets teams adjust quickly to changes and reprioritize tasks, making them more adaptable to market and employee needs.
SWOT Analysis: SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats) analysis is a strategic tool that quickly and objectively evaluates a business’s internal and external factors. By spotting areas for improvement, potential new clients, and external threats, teams can quickly adapt and improve their operations.
Strengthening Financial Stability
Financial Flow Optimization: When things get tough, it’s important to make sure your financial flows are as efficient as possible. Wise leaders focus on the most profitable areas, set priorities, keep their plans flexible, and look for new opportunities in creative ways. This approach helps the team stay strong and ready for anything.
Ensuring Well-being
It’s important to keep people healthy, both physically and mentally. It’s important to take care of your physical and mental health so you can make good decisions in a crisis. Leaders need to focus on their own well-being if they want to support their team effectively. Practices like regular exercise, mindfulness, and maintaining a work-life balance help leaders stay energized and ready to guide their teams through challenging times.
Embracing Innovation
Adapting to New Practices: People and companies often resist new practices without good reasons. It can seem like a big ask, but making changes is the only way to stay resilient. Leaders should introduce new work practices consistently and gradually, with a positive attitude, to help employees embrace learning and change.
There are lots of other ways to make a company more resilient and adaptable. It’s important for leadership teams to understand that resilience and adaptability aren’t skills you can just pick up overnight. So, they should be studied regularly, chosen depending on the situation, goals, and context, and applied carefully and creatively. This kind of mindset will help your company weather any sudden restructuring that might be needed in an emergency. A company that builds an adaptive system will be better able to handle crises and view change as an opportunity for growth and development.
