‘Designing Strategies’ eNewsletter
March – April, 2010 Volume 7 Issue 32
Recently, I pulled my copy of Adversity Quotient® by Peter G. Stoltz, PhD off my bookshelf. Dr. Stoltz is a renowned expert on adversity and how individuals and organizations of all sizes deal with and overcome it. Heaven knows, we’ve all seen our share of adversity and challenges the past couple of years as we navigated the turbulent economy. Hopefully, your small business has been dealing with adversity to plan your way to recovery.
Business owners faced challenges from a drop in revenue, need to reduce facility, staffing and supply chain costs, to lack of available credit. Decisions to lay off workers or close the doors became very real and critical. Some business owners and leaders approached these challenges swiftly, making whatever changes necessary to keep their companies afloat. Others took an innovative approach, introducing new products to attract cautious consumers. Yet others found themselves overwhelmed and unprepared for the barrage of challenges facing them. Which approaches has your firm chosen to use in dealing with adversity?
Who is dealing with adversity best?
The difference between those who just survive the economic downturn, those who fold entirely and those who thrive? It boils down to resilience defined by the Merriam-Webster dictionary as the ability to recover from or adjust easily to misfortune or change. Those most adaptable when faced with a challenge will do far better than those who find the burden of multiple difficulties coming at them to be more than they can handle.Think of resiliency in terms of elasticity – the ability to stretch and reshape to meet challenges, then to snap back once solutions are in place.
Stoltz developed a scientific process, CORE, ® through which an individual or organization can measure their level of resiliency. Key factors measured are: Control, Ownership, Reach and Endurance. Knowing what can be controlled, taking ownership of outcomes, limiting the reach of the adversity and knowing you can endure setbacks, large or small in scope, are all important. They can mean the difference between a high level of resilience, survival, and success, and an inability to cope when faced with adversity and failure.
How Are You Dealing with Adversity for Recovery?
As we work our way out of this recession, take stock of yourself and your company and your resilience to adversity. It’s not too late to make changes to your firm to get it back on track.Try new approaches. Invest in your people, prepare them for the good times that will come back. Be creative and innovative in your approach. Investigate new marketing channels and niche markets.
Take control of your business; take ownership of necessary changes and outcomes. Don’t allow the economic challenges we’ve been facing to overtake your whole life. Know that you can endure this economy. You’ve made it through tough times before. Dealing with adversity should be a standard tool in your small business bag of tricks. Slow economic times have come and gone over the years and you’ve survived. You will again. Plan on it.
VISUALIZE — ANALYZE — STRATEGIZE
Your firm’s way back from the Recession an on to Recovery
‘Recession’ and ‘Recession/Recovery’ images via freedigitalphotos.net | Stuart Miles
Maurer Consulting Group is a strategies firm helping clients evaluate and formulate strategies for success.Designing Strategies is a bi-monthly, email-generated newsletter sent to you withTerri Maurer’s compliments. Please feel free to forward Designing Strategies to friends and colleagues you think might find it interesting and informative. To be added to or removed from our recipients list,please send an email to tlmaurer@maurerconsultinggroup.com.
