There’s no better example of “system stress” than the COVID-19 crisis. It’s difficult to find any aspect of life — from business, to personal, to health — that hasn’t been transformed by the impact of the virus.

As a small business owner, you may be looking to 2021 and wondering: what can I do to ensure that my business is adaptive and successful in the months ahead? What kinds of resiliency strategies can I implement to support my employees and customers?

As we look ahead to the new year, we wanted to share some of the most impactful steps you can take between now and January 1, 2021 to build a more stable, resilient business that continues to grow and thrive in the years ahead: 

Six Steps to a Resilient Business

1.  Plan for Redundancy

If the pandemic has taught us anything, it’s that we need to expect the unexpected.

Consider how you can buffer different parts of your business against unexpected shocks. For example, can you identify multiple suppliers to keep your supply chain intact? Can you update internal processes to take pressure off certain team members who might be more prone to market changes, like office or warehouse staff?

2. Lead With Diversity

In business, it’s not enough to simply hire people from diverse backgrounds with different cognitive profiles — we need to create environments that foster and reward new and innovative ways of thinking and doing things. 

3. Apply Modular Thinking

Modular thinking, when applied to business, allows individual elements within an organization to fail without the entire system collapsing.

Breaking your business into smaller “chunks” with well-defined processes, expectations, and goals means you can quickly adapt to unexpected market shifts and changes.

Click here to begin your resilience training and become an unshakeable leader.

4. Be Adaptable

Being adaptable means being able to learn and evolve through trial and error. Resiliency training and especially emotional intelligence development are essential for success in this area, since it requires being ok with experimentation and — possibly — failure.

Instead of focusing on stability and as little variance as possible, focus instead on developing processes and structures designed to be flexible, and conducive to new inputs like changes to the market.

5. Invest in Your Resilience

One of the key tenets of building a resilient business is being resilient, yourself. Understanding how you react to change, and how you can manage your emotions and those of others around you, is an essential skill in today’s quickly-changing business world.

6. Be Prudent.. But Not Afraid

Accept that if something could happen, it eventually will, and plan for it.

Accepting that change is inevitable is how we plan to react accordingly, which can include training and certification, scenario planning, monitoring early warning signs, being receptive to feedback and input from your employees, and regularly checking in with your team.

Become More Resilient in 2021

There’s no better time to invest in building the skills necessary for continued success. By investing in resilience training you can develop a deeper understanding of yourself, others, and how to manage through times of change and disruption.

Invest in your resilience by clicking here to order your copy of “Emotional Intelligence: Your Foundation for Success“, our new book packed with a wide range of activities pertaining to five realms of emotional intelligence: self-perception, self-expression, interpersonal, decision making, and stress management