In turbulent times, companies must discover what kind of adjustments are right for them to stay relevant. It can seem overwhelming. But there are a few ways to think about resourcefulness to help companies of any size manage through stressful environments.
In our Dandelion Strategy model, resourcefulness is key. Dandelions send down a taproot first and go deep so the plant can hang out all winter and wait for the perfect time to emerge. This foundation gives them some stability for the battle ahead. By the time you see what's going on the dandelion is way ahead of you. The dandelion has a plan for survival—but it also looks out for the surrounding ecosystem. They bring up nutrients that help surrounding plants. They loosen and aerate the soil in some places and hold on to it in others to fight erosion. They even fertilize the ground around them ... and people rave about the iron and Vitamins A, C and K, Folate, Calcium, and Potassium dandelions add to salads.
How would you rate your brand on resourcefulness? How do you take advantage of the opportunities around you? How are you using what you learn?
Dial up your resourcefulness with these seven steps:
Embrace the chaos. Business and life are rarely linear. When you plan for the chaos and build teams that can adjust on the run, challenges are just puzzles to be solved. And you can hire good puzzle solvers.
Computer programmers and mathematicians use chaos theory, instead. This says that instead of keeping to a predictable pattern, we’d be better off—and find solutions faster—by moving in non-linear ways. The author and economist Tim Harford put it this way: “When everything is perfect, when everything is tidy, we're on autopilot. And we're not necessarily living in the moment, we're not necessarily paying attention. And that's a problem for us.” Embrace the chaos, live in the moment, and thrive in the turbulence.
Listen to the people on the front lines. That’s where people are making real-time adjustments to the market and customer and supply chain issues to keep things rolling.
Plenty of companies put up posters or engage in employer branding campaigns to motivate staff or remind employees that their ideas matter. Those can be effective. They can also be vacuous and empty. What we’re talking about here is really listening to the people who see and hear the needs, frustrations, wishes every day. I’m always surprised at how many amazing—and amazingly simple—solutions come out of conversations with the teams on the ground. Management can’t see it all and should never think it is their job to solve every issue. Get on the ground, listen, and act on the information provided.
Expand your market. You may need to change your game a bit. Some say if your organization is not evolving, it is dying! How are you evolving to meet new, emerging demands?
Uber launched UberEats in 2016 in mostly large markets. By 2018 they were expanding into smaller markets and competing with challengers like DoorDash and GrubHub. Adoption wasn’t hitting the numbers everyone wanted in part because consumers saw food delivery as a solution to a problem they didn’t have, and restaurant owners saw the costs as too high. Then the pandemic happened and restaurants were effectively shut down. This put UberEats, DoorDash, GrubHub, and the rest of the delivery industry in the spotlight as viable and necessary solutions to both consumer demand and restaurants staying in business. To put this expansion into perspective, consider that Uber made $10.4 billion in 2019 from its legacy business, but only $7.3 billion in 2021. Over that same time, Uber Eats grew from $1.9 billion to $8 billion in revenue.
Consider new ways to deliver your product or service. If customers can’t get to you, how do you get to them? How can you meet them halfway? If you can’t stock what you had before, how can you still deliver delight and surprise for your customers?
For example, there are all kinds of rumblings about looming toy shortages this Christmas. That’s going to be a problem but it’s not top of mind yet. It will be. If Christmas is part of your game, how could you change the game and be the hero?
Partner with other businesses. Dandelions don’t just look out for themselves. And neither should you. Who else could help you thrive? How could you help them? How could you link arms with companies offering adjacent services so your combined services solve even more challenges for your customers?
During a past recession I worked with a company that specialized in community waste services dominated by mom and pop operations. We found their customers couldn’t afford to take a week off to attend elaborate trade shows in Vegas. We interviewed a number of these business owners and found they wanted the information and exposure to new ideas, but all of that had to be more convenient for them. Our solution was to partner with adjacent companies and conduct regional shows so customers could drive over—not fly—get the information they needed and get back home the same day. It solved a number of issues for the manufacturers and their customers.
Stay connected with your customers. What’s your feedback loop? Who’s keeping their finger on the pulse? Make sure the person or people you put in charge of monitoring customer feedback are in the right seat. Look for someone who thrives on collecting information (good and bad), mining for insights that can make a difference, and then turning those insights into actionable data.
I once worked with a start-up company that had a senior leader in charge of monitoring customer response. According to reports inside the company, customers were in great shape and loved everything about the brand. By contrast, a little social listening indicated the company was far behind on deliveries, didn’t return phone calls, and was quickly building a reputation for bait and switch. It turned out that the executive was only responding to good news from customers. He was ignoring the complaints. And those complaints were piling up. The company had to put another exec in place fast to save and rebuild the company’s reputation.
Celebrate the lessons. I encourage you to build a learning culture, not just a good news culture. In good news cultures, executives make it clear that all they want to hear is what worked, the good news. Bad news is punished as are the people responsible for it. As a result, people learn to avoid risk because taking chances means you might fail. And failure of any type could get you fired. That’s never the case in resourceful and innovative companies. They stretch, they stumble, they bump into things. Take 3M, for example. Scotch tape and Post-it Notes are just two of the many products that came to life because 3M empowered their people to tinker outside of their box. Scotch added adhesive to cellulose strips for an auto body paint masking solution while Post-it repurposed a light adhesive that didn’t have a reason to exist into a tool used all over the world.
Resourceful companies do exactly that. Like 3M, they give people permission to try new things and stray from their normal course of work. Sure, some of those things won’t work, some will underperform, and some might take off into outer orbit.
That’s why it’s important to celebrate the lessons learned and share the highs and lows as a group. Google’s former Head of People Operations Laszlo Bock stated in his book, Work Rules!, “it’s also important to reward failure” so as to encourage risk-taking. Scott Cook, co-founder of Intuit, said, “At Intuit, we celebrate failure. Literally: Intuit has a Greatest Failure Award. Because every failure teaches something important that can be the seed for the next great idea.”
Resourcefulness requires being able to imagine solutions that don’t exist yet. That kind of thinking happens best when people feel safe from prosecution within the company. Build a culture that enables courageous thinking and exploration. Celebrate what you learn and grow from them.
What ways have you found to be resourceful in these turbulent times? Let us know by commenting below.