Are you change ready?

If ever there has been a time we needed to be ‘change ready’ it has been in the last couple of years. Yet, what lies ahead could require even more change – real change that truly transforms our businesses. But how can we make the most of the opportunities available and truly ‘ready’ ourselves for the performance Australia needs from small to medium sized businesses [the workhorse of the economy]?

We shouldn’t be striving for the new normal but instead, strive to find our ‘next normal’. Things have changed before and whether you compare it to the Global Financial Crisis, past recessions, or health crisis, humans are generally very adaptable. But we won’t be going back to how things used to be.

tolerance for ambiguity

An individual’s tolerance for ambiguity during these times will be key to making sure we are aware of how team members are potentially going to react to these uncertain times and also how we will react ourselves. Does your team get stuck, anxious, stressed and nervous? Or are they flexible, allowing them to thrive and adapt to change?

To find out more about your tolerance for ambiguity, try completing this handy tool from AdaptiQ Minds called ‘Indicator of Ambiguity’.

For some businesses, it is the youngest and newest person in the team that has the skills needed to help the organisation survive and thrive. Martin Betts suggests that in the future we will see different people thrive and he challenges us to look to new and different places for innovation going forward.

I know I struggle to identify when the team needs me to step aside from a problem and leave them to it, or when I need to step up and show them the way out of a problem. Small business owners, managers, and founders tend to be more equipped to deal with change and as they are familiar with needing to take swift action to solve a problem or grab an opportunity.

Leadership at the moment is about providing clarity, not certainty.

moving to our ‘next normal’ with growth on our minds

Businesses are looking to come out of their transition to their ‘next normal’ experiencing growth.

But what does growth look like? Business growth can mean different things for different people. Discussions with our clients and contacts in the SME market suggest that the main type of growth people are currently seeking includes growth in:

their business model [maybe it’s time for the business to grow up],
top-line sales/turnover [capacity may already exist],
efficiency [including back office and key business processes], and
profit [which ultimately should lead to growth in cashflow].

Growth doesn’t just happen though – it almost always requires some type of change. Is your business ready for change? If not, you may be wasting your time.