It seems like the unrelenting anxiety that many of us felt around the election may be easing. Yet, even if you are a Biden supporter, the win didn’t make for any substantial change to the underlying cause of the stress. We still have a growing Covid pandemic that is devastating our people and the economy. We probably won’t have a vaccine until next spring and it could be 6 months until we have enough people vaccinated to create herd immunity. As a small business owner told me yesterday, her only option is resilience: just “keeping on…”
So, what does keeping on look like? For her and most of my Vistage Members it is continuing to be laser focused on 3 things: make at least one dollar, (more if you can), keep your good people and good customers, and look for opportunities to innovate.
We’ve been talking about these 3 things for 6 months now. Guess what? They are working. Profits are definitely improving, For some, revenues are catching up or exceeding last year. Some good people are poachable from organizations that are not focused on their people and new customers are showing up because of better product availability, better service or better marketing. Some of the innovations people have come up with are out of desperation, and some could have been implemented sooner but needed enough corporate will to make unpopular decisions: firing unprofitable but favorite customers, for example.
The focus many organizations had for the last six months on improving processes, fixing glitches, remote work force, zooming everything is paying off. This is “keeping on…” The gritty, everyday, get up and do it again nature of resilience.
And, lastly, “keeping on…” is about choosing your attitude. This whole long week I kept hearing that song Tomorrow from “Annie” playing in my head. Just …”stick out your chin and grin and say…the sun will come out tomorrow”.
It’s your choice.