Uncertainty in business seems to be the only certainty. It is in the wake of the pandemic and massive business shutdowns.
Uncertainty can be daunting and create panic. The trick lies in gathering the pieces and turning them into opportunities.
No business is risk-free. When you step into an entrepreneur’s foot, it becomes a lifestyle. When one quits a 9-5 job, he/she seeks loans for the self-employed.
Instead of panicking, the best leaders embrace uncertainty. Our brains are hard-wired to view uncertainty as a massive risk and end up getting nervous. It is especially true for entrepreneurs. They have traced their paths by making thoughtful decisions on the journey to business excellence.
Rather than avoiding the uncertainties and fearing them, embrace them. Acknowledge the discomfort and analyze the provision for opportunities.
Satya Nadella, CEO of Microsoft, says, “Leaders need to shift from a “know it all” attitude to a “learn it all” mindset.”
Uncertainties are lessons. Moreover, lessons are only learned when one goes through the utmost discomfort. This shift in mindset will help ease the pressure. It helps you analyze opportunities in uncertainties.
Here is how you can do so:
Tips to turn business uncertainties into opportunities
1) Face and re-define uncertainty
When dealing with uncertainty, you might find shutting down the business instinctual. It eliminates the possibility of growth altogether and thus restricts innovation.
Where it is easy to give in when uncertainty kicks in, shrug off shoulders, step back and analyze the past events. Analyzing the drawbacks and flaws with an eye for detail is time-taking. It might disturb your personal life as well. However, stepping back isn’t an option. Identify the loopholes, revise the business strategy. Cut the points which could further have a devastating impact on your business.
Take responsibility for your decisions and do what you find apt.
2) Draft a Vision
Vision is a force that pulls one out of uncertainty and gets working towards achieving the goal. You are currently dealing with a business shut down because of
- Natural calamity
- Expenditures exceeding revenue
- Employees resigning at an alarming rate or something grave.
All these create a vision. The vision should be focused on your present needs. You should align with meeting future uncertainties as well.
The vision has to be strong enough backed by a Plan B. It should be something that you desire more than anything else. It makes you feel alive and rejuvenated.
Creating a vision helps you line up the things back on track. You can achieve balance distorted by uncertainties.
3) Prioritize your team
Apart from the owners, employees face unprecedented pressure and uncertainties. It is in the wake of a loss or business shutdowns.
Employees must feel motivated, encouraged, supported, and valued. It is regardless of what’s happening outside the company. Create an inclusive structure to foster a sense of belonging among employees and leaders.
According to the research, people perform better in an organization in which they feel a sense of belonging. They work innovatively and contribute to the firm.
Thus, focus on nurturing encouragement among your employees, and provoking creative ideas. You should support them in a state of confusion and uncertainty.
4) Identify and Analyze future challenges
Under present circumstances and an unpredictable future, identify the areas in business. These areas are where you can enhance and revise triggering a fountain of sales. Here are some of the business arenas that could be referred to analyse the major shift in the business:
- Workforce
- User-experience
- Communications sector
- Infrastructure
- Streamlining Cash flow
- Engaging customers
- Improving sources of leads
- Improving sales and business structure
Identifying the loopholes and repairing them can help a business improve its efficiency. It can do this in the face of challenges and competition.
5) Manage risks and be future-ready
Understand, analyze and re-frame business strategies and change the story by answering-
“What opportunity does this point conceal?”
For example:
A potential future difficulty in your workforce might be: Remote work
How can you combat this challenge?
Identify the solution to the problem as in,
What could you do to maximize productivity in remote working?
You might come up with certain solutions like:
- Ensuring good connectivity
- Streamlining all touchpoints
- Introduce flexible policies/working hours
- Take actionable measures towards ensuring the work-life balance of an employee
- Developing a stringent business and execution strategy in line with deadlines.
Thus, analyze difficulties, picture them, how they can prove a threat in the future? How can you overcome it by improving the current business structure? Having a clear, futuristic plan will help you stay ahead of uncertainties and achieve desired business sales.
6) Inculcate Value-based Decision Making
Instead of making instinctual decisions for the business, prioritize value-based decision-making. The value-based decision-making process helps in identifying potential aspects. After that, you can start the strategy. Unless the strategy is aimed at multiplying value, the firm will not prosper.
Analyze which values base your decision?
Replace Core “cute” words with “actionable and empathetic words” to deliver value and gain more customers for your business.
7) Sort alternative future
Uncertainty has handcuffed you to take any further action. You can still analyze and figure out potential measures to two or more potential alternatives. Based on these, you can craft actionable and result-oriented strategies. You can also develop additional contingencies. It is to ensure strategic flexibility down the line and counter future uncertainties with ease.
Industry legislation, regulations, mandates, and competitors’ strategies can help ease the uncertainty level. If you want discrete outcomes, you need to have many close-knit strategies flexible enough to adapt to the one you desire.
8) Don’t oversimplify challenges
In the face of downfalls and uncertainty, it’s natural to look for simple solutions. Still, these won’t make much difference.
Oversimplifying challenges can stifle creativity, obscure interdependencies. At worse, they create a false sense of security. Drawing nuances from the mess has helped to overcome challenges in the past. It can likewise affect your growth and make you miss unique challenges.
Many achievers and ambitions become frustrated. It is when challenges provide no reasonable insight into the future. The entrepreneurs should not get into quick decisions. They should balance their need for action with a disciplined approach. It is only possible if one analyses the business structure to the core and fights his biases.
9) Don’t Fight it alone; reach out to your network
Many circumstances result from uncertainty or a significant loss. Many corporate heads walk ahead isolated with the natural urge to solve it alone. Instead, the firm should encourage the active participation of the team members.
As the complexity and workload double up, doubling up the efficiency is a simple decision. Solving issues single-handedly particularly can benefit when the business is facing short-term crises. You should not adopt the same perspective. It is especially for managing long-term uncertainties with many interdependencies.
Thus, adopt the right approach to solving matters on the surface. Then, combat uncertainties in business. It will not only help you develop result-oriented strategies. Still, it keeps calm and manages anxieties as well.
As stated by a CEO, “when I try to make sense of a complex issue, the primary thing I do is- reach out to people whose opinion I take on a high note, and whose experience differs from mine in some aspect. I wish to know “How they take the present situation, what’s their point of view? However, I expect little. I still want to plug into their minds thinking.”
Therefore, it is a healthy practice to dwell in the minds of your networks and leverage healthy outputs for your business.
10) Build and develop the organisation
Counter current and future business challenges and adapt to changes. Focus on building a developing organization. Encourage your team members to take part and contribute to the benefit of the firm and individuals as a core.
Grant them the freedom. It ensures a proper resonance between the business’s mission and innovating customers’ experience.
Eliminate layers to ensure a seamless operation set-up. Score high on customer satisfaction levels.
Owners have to meet immediate business requirements in the face of business transformation. They often file business loans for bad credit especially from direct lenders in the UK. It helps uplift the distorted business structure.
Joining the dots amid uncertainty in business is a skill to crack. Businesses need to refine their outlook towards tackling uncertainties. They have to craft out productive ways to end future threats.
