In times of upheaval, why do some people, communities, companies and systems thrive, while others fall apart?

Kate Davis, the Creative Mindset Coach explains why creating and embracing creativity and ambitious resilience in your business, and in your own mind, will allow agility and growth.

What is ambitious resilience?

Resilience is the capacity of a system, enterprise or person to maintain its core purpose and integrity in the face of dramatically changed circumstances. – Andrew Zolli

Think of a rubber band. You can pull it, wrap it around packages, pull it back and ping it at your loved ones (safety first, people), and otherwise distort it – but when you leave it be, its core shape and integrity remains the same.

When you have ambitious resilience built in, you are able to do the same. You can flex and be agile as a person, and in your business, whilst all the same remaining true to your core.

Encouraging and embracing ambitious resilience and creative thinking will enable you to not only survive in times of crisis or upheaval, but actually to thrive.

But what if I don’t have a creative business?

Creativity sometimes creates a tangible outcome, a piece of art, but this is only one outcome of creative thinking.

Are you, and your business, innovative, imaginative, future-focused, willing to experiment, problem solving, wanting to think of things in a different way?

This is creative thinking, and it is this mindset that will allow and encourage resilience.

Connecting to Purpose

Knowing your purpose means that you can flex what you do, even how you do it, but the ‘why’ remains the same.

As Simon Sinek, the author of Start with Why, describes this, your ‘why’ as “the purpose, cause or belief that drives every one of us.” It provides clarity, inspires action encourages agility and provides impact is our contribution to impact and serve others.

As a WhyFinder, I know that helping others to identify and live their own why is fundamental in providing clarity, allowing clear communication and will draw people to you in a way no advertising slogan can. As Sinek says ‘People don’t buy what you do, they buy why you do it.’

This is not only a key tenet of the WhyFinder principles, but also in a business’s ability to be agile and resilient.

Agile Business Practice

Agile is a project management methodology developed for software, but it is as relevant for human nature as it is for coding.

In agile philosophy, mindset, values and principles (your purpose or why) change infrequently, practices, tools and processes (what you do) flex and adapt dynamically depending on market pressures and customer demand.

An agile philosophy encourages us to work together, trust and support, reflect and adjust encourages collaboration and face to face conversation in order to welcome change and ultimately satisfy the customer.

Throughout history there are numerous examples of business resilience – those that adapted, survived and thrived.

Take Wall’s, for example. Thomas Wall II saw that his sales of sausages, meat and pies disappeared during the summer months (before we all became obsessed with BBQs, presumably), and he had to lay off large numbers of staff, only to reemploy them again 6 months later. He decided to flex and adapt, and introduced a summer-friendly line – icecream.

Or cobblers – who also struggled with the seasonality of their profession. Demand for shoe repairs was high in the winter, but dropped off in the summer. But people tended to move house in the summer months. So they flexed, used their equipment and skills, and incorporated key cutting into their businesses.

Others have needed to flex due to outside circumstances. Victorinox, most famous for the iconic Swiss Army knife, saw their sales plummet overnight after 9/11. When people were no longer allowed to carry knives on planes, they could have panicked. But instead, they looked at their business model, and their customers needs and flexed. Knives now only accounts for a fraction of their revenue – the rest now made up of luggage, watches and even perfume. Their business is now able to survive, and thrive, in times of upheaval and change.

During the Coronavirus epidemic and ensuing lockdown, we have all seen examples of companies who have shown their agility and capacity for change in lockdown.

A local café, for example, who saw an opportunity to serve, and maintain their core business – being one of the first locally to offer a takeaway and delivery option, but also added grocery boxes, were the only place locally you could buy bread flour and eggs, and then saw the shift in the market again and offer their famous burgers as a DIY kit to BBQ at home, with curated wine boxes from another local company.

Or the pilates and yoga teachers going online. Therapists working remotely (Zoom Reiki, anyone?), and those companies who showed their true values immediately – the large gym chain who immediately notified all customers that their payments would be frozen, but still offered weekly online classes, and tips and recipes to stay healthy, the big food delivery companies that prioritised their delivery slots (remember “you are number 3479 of 5271 in the queue”?) for the vulnerable and then their existing customers.

What does all this mean for you, and your business?

How do you create and embed ambitious resilience in yourself, your teams and your business?