Building Resilience: Thriving in a Competitive Business Environment"

Introduction 

In contemporary rapidly changing and evolving 

 business environment, resilience is more than a

 buzzword; it is an essential quality for long-term

 endurance.

 Organizations must confront new

 technologies, new market demands, and

 unending competition; hence, it is critical that

 organizations can quickly adapt if the

 organization seeks to ‘survive’. 

Resilience is

 surviving and thriving through adversity, and

 using adversity as a springboard. As an agenda

 in this article, we outline important

 characteristics of resilience above and beyond

 the bare essentials to cope and survival, and

 what organizations can do to cultivate resilience

 and make it an important component of their

 cultural makeup.

### 1. **Adaptability and Change**

The capacity to adapt to new circumstances is

 central to resilience.

 In a business climate

 characterized competitiveness, change is

 consistent at at multiple levels; to whether

 consumer tastes are changing, or there are new

 technological advances, or other competitor

 organizations enter the market. 

When an

 organization has nimbleness and a willingness

 to start again, it is at such times that an

 organization has a real competitive tool.

***Leaders need to develop a culture of active

 learners among employees, empowering

 employees to be innovative and engage in new

 idea thinking, willingness to take intelligent,

 explore or invent new solutions.*** An

 opportunity is to leverage organizational

 changes. An affiliate of educational

 opportunities can encourage learning and

 changes in business. 

For an organization, change

 can be seen as an opportunity to reliability

 determine if they need to adjust the business

 model, if using a new tech manufacturing

 method would elevate the goals of the business

 model of a new tech-based solution, or finally if

 a new market opportunity emerges that requires

 Creativity of existing capabilities to exist within

 the new marginal market context.

### 2. **Growth Mindfulness**

A growth mindset, the idea conceived and

 proliferated by psychologist Carol Dweck, is

 believing that abilities and intelligence can be

 developed through dedication and hard work.

 From that context for learning in the workplace

 environments, a growth mindset enable

 resilience to move from being left to reluctance

 to try again because of a highly selected narrow

 tipping on previous failures as unfortunate to

 learn from failure.   

# 3. **Setting Long-Term Goals, Yet Flexible**

While setting long-term goals for direction is

 vital, flexibly attending to the best path to

 achieve those goals is also important. It is safe to

 say the journey to success is not often a straight,

 predictable line; especially in a competitive

 context. Resilient organizations can figure out

 detours along the path of success and maintain a

 focus on long-term objectives.

Flexibility does not mean abandoning a long-

term goal when trouble first arises. Rather,

 flexibility implies modifying strategies and

 tactics with that long-term goal in mind. The

 ability to remain flexible in difficult times

 enables the organization to stay the course

 despite unanticipated challenges and economic 

 downturns.

### 4. **Strong Leadership, Clear Communication**

Resilience begins at the top. Strong leadership is

 important in building and maintaining a

 resilient organization. Leaders who can operate

 in a calm manner, across all communications,

 and provide firm action signals to the team it

 will navigate adversities.

Additionally, clear and open communication

 supports all employees' alignment for resolving

 challenges, decisions and operational aim. When

 employees can understand the rationale for

 decisions - whether difficult conversations or

 strategic shifts - the body of employees are less

 likely to become disengaged.  

 
5. **The Centrality of Employee Well-being**

There is a direct relationship between

 organizational resilience and employee

 resilience.  

Stress, burnout, and disengagement

 can diminish the resilience of an organization to

 pivot.  Therefore, organizational resilience is

 reliant on the organization investing in

 employee well-being. 

When an employee is resourced and equipped to

 think about their well-being, encouraged to set

 healthy boundaries between work and life, and

 is in an environment and culture that is

 supportive, they are more engaged, and

 probably more likely to navigate challenge

 effectively even during difficult times.

  An employee feels cared for and supported will

 have more emotional bandwidth to work

 through a challenge as an organization.

 Employee support may contribute to the

 organization's own resilience in terms of

 organizations they may be connected,

 networking, and advocating externally to

 support the organization if necessary.

6. **Create Business Relationships and
 Partnerships**

There is no business that will prosper in a silo,

 and healthy and resilient organizations will

 have strong networks both internally and

 externally to rely on for support, collaboration,

 or just to help them think through a challenge.

 Partnerships can for your organization means

 give your organization some leverage through

 access to new resources for your organization,

 access to other markets, or innovations that will

 keep you in front of your competition. 

Networking is applicable when discussing your

 customers too.

 An established client base or

 customer loyalty will carry your organization

 through hard times. The relationship you

 establish with your customer through the

 quality of service and value added through

 continuous innovation will build you an

 organization to float the uncertain.

7. **Adopt Technology and Innovation**

If your organization refuses to innovate in this

 commonly used digital world, you are headed

 toward obsolescence. 

Your organization is easy

 to access through technologies that allow your

 organization to streamline your processes, gain

 process efficiencies, also to meet the promise of

 customer service.  Resilient organizations

 embrace uncertainty, leverage on outside the box

 thinking, and if committed to will not think twice about heading into the unknown adopting

 tools and platforms to gain a competitive

 advantage.  

**Foster learning from past failure, setback and

 so-called "failure".**

:All organizations will experience setbacks at

 some point in time, yet what will separate

 organizations that will demonstrate resilience in

 the face of setbacks (versus organizations that

 will fail) will be context and process of acting

 and responding to the setback or failure.

8:##  Learning from failure is essential to progress. 

An organization with a habit of

 embracing failure (as learning) builds careful

 and engaged experimentation and thoughtful

 risk taking.

Leaders should take some time to reflect and

 examine the issues with our past and apply the

 learnings we established moving forward. This

 reflection has the dual impact of assisting the

 organization pushing forward in the context of

 their past.

 Moreover, this reflection has the

 potential to build resilience in the organization

 at the same time. 

A leader recognizing and

 correcting their past with intentionality,

 develops stronger deliberation skills when

 addressing future issues in their work

 organization with consideration and thoughtful

 approaches.

9:## Financial Resilience and Risk Management For the Organization.##

Another area of thriving in an environment of

 competition is financial resilience. Organizations

 with solid financial systems and financial risk

 mitigate systems weather downturns in the

 market better.

Financial resilience can look like diversifying

 revenue streams, maintaining a healthy amount

 of cash reserves, and doing a marketplace risk

 assessment more often.  When an organization

 is prepared to make a change, the organization

 can rebound quicker and continue competing

 when there are downturns in the economy.

##: In conclusion,

building resilience in an environment of

 competition is not an event, it is a process. It

 requires an ongoing commitment to adapt, and

 be growth-minded (not complain - but grow), be

 actively lead, and build your culture.

 However,

 if you focus on the four areas, the organization

 will be able to find their way to survive and

 prosper at challenges, and even find challenges

 as opportunities for growth and inspiration.

In a rapidly changing (and competitive)

 environment, resilience is the greatest

 competitive advantage.