Will there be a global recession? I don’t know. I can’t foretell the future, and nor can you.
But one thing we know is that sooner or later times will come that will challenge your business, perhaps to its very survival. How will you respond? How will you prepare?
Here’s a clue. As a member of the WA Family Business advisor group, I had the benefit of hearing some highlights from the research conducted recently by Grant Thornton and Family Business Australia. One of the evergreen questions in family business is succession, so the survey looked hard at that. There was detailed data on the many components of readiness for that big transition. We can sample that detail another time. What I’d like to offer you now is almost a sidelight to the Grant Thornton research, but very relevant to the question we started with.
It turns out that the businesses who had done the most planning for succession also came through COVID better. Not because a global pandemic was part of their game plan – I mean, did you see that coming? – but because planning is how you cultivate resilience to business shocks.
Doing the work of making, agreeing and documenting plans for what you can see coming means you’ll cope better with what you didn’t see coming. You don’t need a crystal ball; you just need a habit of preparedness. As the Scouts say: Be Prepared!
Prepared for what? For surprises! There will be shocks, and there will be opportunities.
Recession or not, we’re all going to face transitions in our business. With or without a recession, most business owners now are facing workforce shortages, supply chain chaos, rising input costs, evolving client expectations, ditto employee expectations, disrupters with new business models, cybersecurity threats, climate uncertainty… and the rest. Those that make it (however transfigured) will have used good governance and good planning to be ready for anything. Their businesses will be digital-savvy, distributed, inclusive, human-centric, agile. The one thing that won’t work is clinging to what used to work!
Do you want to start getting ready to thrive in times of rapid change?
Give us a call, let’s see if we can work together on this.