Episode 167 - Building a Future-Ready Business

Good day and welcome to The Budding Entrepreneur podcast. I'm your host, Randy Briggs. In each episode, we dive into practical business strategies that you can put to work in your business right away. 

We also focus on inspiring stories from leaders who are shaking and making things happen in their industry. It's all about giving you the tools and insights to take you and your business to the next level. So get comfortable and let's jump right in. 

All right, all right. We are on episode 167 of the Budding Entrepreneur podcast. Today is Friday, September 27th, 2024. 

Now this is the final episode in our month-long series on agile leadership. I'd planned to include an interview today, but my schedule just got away from me this week. I'm sure that I'm going to bring in this person for next month because we'll be talking about something that really matters to what she's doing. 

But instead, today we'll be wrapping up everything we've covered this month and we'll explore how everything kind of fits into a larger framework for building a future-ready business. Right, it's not just enough that you're building your business today. It matters that you're looking to the future, keeping things in mind, so that as you start putting some of these strategies and these pieces of idea together into your business, you want to be thinking toward the future. 

Not necessarily only the future, but you'll be looking toward it. And we'll be looking at three core elements of high-level agile leadership today to provide a toolkit you need to pivot fast without breaking your business. Looking ahead at our agenda for the day, we're going to get a quote from Warren Bennis, one of the pioneers of leadership studies.

Then we'll break down those three key components in the areas of agile leadership as a whole. You'll learn a little bit more about how these processes work together to create a flexible yet strong business model capable of withstanding whatever comes your way. We'll also explore real-world examples of how implementing those strategies can transform a business from surviving to thriving. 

In our quote for today, I want to start with that quote from Warren Bennis. He said, leadership is the capacity to translate vision into reality. And that's exactly what we're trying to do here today, especially with the Budding Entrepreneur Podcast, is taking these theoretical concepts and putting them together in a real tangible way within your business that will help you long term to grow what you're doing and to look at other companies that we can borrow some of these concepts and ideas from. 

Let's dive right into our main topic here. This is going to be a relatively short show, just simply because it's not a lot of material to wrap up. And yet there's a lot of things that are going to be included in here that are going to maybe surprise you a little bit. 

Our first core topic, and this is in the idea of agile leadership, is what we call adaptive leadership. Now this is not some crazy thing that comes from, you know, going with the flow and everything. It's really a unique leadership style that fits within agile that allows you to remain flexible in the face of rapid change without losing focus on the bigger picture. 

It's about knowing when to adjust your approach while keeping the ship moving in the right direction. When a business adopts adaptive leadership, it develops a culture of listening and reacting to shifts in the market, customer feedback, or even internal dynamics. And that fits well within the agile mindset.

So if you think about it, if your leadership team can pivot quickly and confidently, that sends a message to everyone in the company that it's okay to take some risks. And more importantly, it's okay to fail fast and learn faster. The result, a company that doesn't just survive changes, it thrives in it. 

Employees are more engaged and decisions are made quickly, with confidence. Imagine having a business where no one gets paralyzed by indecision. That's the power of adaptive leadership, and it fits well with the agile leadership mindset.

The second part is something that is near and dear to my heart as an operations person, and that's resilient operations. This is the backbone of any business that wants to pivot without breaking. This means that your systems, processes, and workflows are robust enough to handle disruption. 

Whether it's a sudden influx of clients, or a shift in the marketplace, you're ready. This is one of the key things that I see a lot of service businesses miss, is they don't build robust systems. And so what happens is they get thrown just a little bit of a curveball, and they're lost. 

They've really got nothing to do, right? But if your service-based business experiences a sudden surge in client demand, your resilient operations ensure you can scale enough without losing quality. Remember, scaling is not just growing higher, wider, or deeper. It's a combination of all of them. 

So when you start scaling, you have to have a different foundation. You can leave the existing foundation in place and build a new foundation around it. When you're doing this, automation can play a big role here. 

But it's not just about the technology aspect. It's about having systems in place that keep everything running smoothly, so you don't have to scramble when things change. This includes having metrics to tell you where things are, to tell you how they're running. 

Essentially, a plane is not flown by what's outside the window as much as it is by the instruments in front of it. So you want to have the instruments that allow you to know what your actual altitude is, to know what your pitch, what your gimbal is working on. These are all concepts that you have to bring into the business that will tell you how to make adjustments when you run into a problem. 

Now, if you picture a business where the team isn't running around putting out fires all the time, specifically because their systems are set up to handle it. That's the beauty of resilient operations. And finally, strategic innovation. 

Now, you hear both of those words together all the time, and a lot of times it's just fluff. It's pablum, right? But strategic innovation, we're not just talking about being creative. It's about smart creativity. 

Strategic innovation is about identifying the opportunities that align with your business objectives, and then seize them before anyone else does. It's not about throwing everything at the wall and seeing what sticks. It's about taking calculated risks that pay off long term. 

A business that embraces strategic innovation is going to be proactive rather than reactive. They're looking for ways to enhance their service offerings, tapping into new markets, and possibly developing new products that solve emerging problems. After all, if you're still solving the old problems that no longer exist, you've got a problem, right? But these people are doing this in the strategic innovation, while keeping their clients and core mission in mind. 

For service-based businesses, this could mean developing new ways of delivering services, like incorporating technology to enhance the client experience, or forming strategic partnerships that open up new revenue streams. The end result is a company that leads its industry, constantly innovating to stay ahead of the game. So, to recap about this, we've discussed adaptive leadership, resilient operations, and strategic innovation as the key strategies to pivot fast without breaking your business, and that is so important. 

I've seen a lot of companies get broken simply by implementing one new thing that changes the paradigm of how they deliver things, and they're out of business quick, or so in need of people like me to come in and help them fix that, right? So, it can break your business if you're not careful, but you put these three approaches together to create a company that can move quickly, adapt to change, and continuously innovate to meet new demands. If you're serious about building a business that can handle whatever the future throws at it, these are your strategies to implement. Now, if you find yourself in a position where you say, you know, Randy, I really like this idea, but I don't even know where to get started.

This is the place to be. The Buddy Entrepreneur Podcast is built for you to be able to help you not just understand the concept, but ultimately reach out to me. My team can help you implement a lot of this, and much of it being done within six to twelve months. 

It's really not a hard thing to do. Now, sneak peek at next month, we're shifting gears as we move into a new high-level topic, vision, right? We'll be discussing how to align your team's goals with your business objectives to ensure everyone is working towards the same destination. You won't want to miss this topic. 

That's it for this episode. I hope you picked up some valuable insights and maybe even sparked a few new ideas. If you want to keep the conversation going, or maybe even explore partnerships, don't hesitate to reach out. 

And hey, don't forget to subscribe, leave a review, and share this with someone who needs to hear it. The steps you take today could be the start of something big tomorrow. For The Budding Entrepreneur, I wish you the best in your health, your wealth, your business, your family, everything about you. 

Take care, and we'll see you back here next week.