Survival Guide for Founders: Is Resilience And Value Creation The Answer To Tough Times?

A report from the IBM Institute for Business Value and Oxford Economics quotes that 90% of all Indian startups fail in the first five years of their inception. The data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) shows that approximately 20% of new businesses fail during the first two years, 45% during the first five years, and 65% during the first ten years. Only 25% of new businesses make it to 15 years or more.

Irrespective of the arguments around the data, the elephant in the global economy remains entrepreneurs’ vulnerability when faced with curveballs.

Even in countries bullish on entrepreneurship, the trend remains far from promising. This is largely due to a lack of training and preparation for successful comebacks. Markets are constantly mutating in today’s VUCA world, a world of volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity. Businesses must plan for failure in the face of dynamic internal and external factors.

Small errors compound and a lack of planning to cover the cost of failure makes business continuity difficult.  The road to recovery, however, is paved by the most understated, forgotten entrepreneurial value – Resilience.

There is an urgent need for entrepreneurs and business leaders to invest in resilience planning and preparation. Resilience, after all, is the key to recovery.

The Case For Investment In Building Resilience Capabilities

When survival is at stake, intentionality becomes the lifeboat.

Leaders who have been pre-conditioned and trained to be resilient can avoid taking any compromising path that may risk going-concern. It can foster purpose-driven unity to keep the core team together, reengineer processes to allow access to critical resources when faced with a curveball, and empower leaders to refocus on creating value even in times of crisis.

Finding Focus In Chaos

Finding single-minded focus when the situation calls for desperate measures is no easy task. While companies that are inherently focused on products rather than profits find it easier to remember the value they set out to deliver, resilience training can empower all leaders, regardless of business philosophy or approach, to remain unswayed by the noise of criticism.

Allowing them to focus on their own competencies amid chaos and be guided by their ikigai will prevent the scattering and erosion of time, attention, and other scarce resources across multiple initiatives with low success rates. It will also condition leaders against defensive capital-saving measures when the time, in fact, demands greater investment for business continuity.

The temptation to adopt diversified strategies to ensure short-term cash flow is often high and seems like an easier fix. Pre-conditioning for resilience can help leaders stay focused and balance short-term needs with long-term goals, encouraging them to build on their core competencies to provide a great experience. A focused delivery approach can also make recovery more manageable, ensuring value creation and delivery one small step at a time.

Rewarding Commitments At The Crucial Moment Of Truth

For first-time entrepreneurs and business leaders, crisis serves as a mirror to all relationships, allowing them to accurately assess allies and advocates.

The commitment to stay true to your promise to deliver on the trust placed in your team by customers, partners and all other stakeholders becomes the driving force for continuity. Reversing the perception — rather than under-delivering after over-committing, a resilience budget can enable businesses to over-deliver while making a comeback and regaining the trust of sceptic stakeholders.

Investing in resilience entails recognising and rewarding resilience as a key value to be celebrated as well as an indicator of capability and performance.

Critical Inclusion And Co-Ownership

Everyone loves the underdog and a good comeback story. It is therefore important to leverage the power of the community and others in the comeback story. Since the natural tendency for individual leaders and entrepreneurs in business crises is to isolate themselves as an extension of shame from personal accountability for failure, resilience training can guide them toward meaningful inclusion of all stakeholders.

Breaking down invisible barriers by facilitating co-ownership of the vision, particularly with external stakeholders, facilitates comeback. Clear and consistent communication in a grapevine-fueled environment helps build bridges, transforming clients and customers from critics and disgruntled opponents to partners contributing to positive reconstruction. 

There may be a small percentage of stakeholders who try to take advantage of your situation, but the majority will be on your side, supporting you. Avoiding the pressures of such negative stakeholders and focusing on the important ones would allow one to deliver effectively.

When the focus is on developing survival strategies in an uncertain future, such seemingly simple yet critical responses are difficult to come by. Investment in resilience planning can be an important determinant at a time when business continuity plans have become the talk of every enterprise following the pandemic. Entrepreneurs, both new and experienced, can manage curveballs and chart their path to recovery, allowing them to leapfrog into the future even in the face of a crisis.

The reward for resilience is not only an invaluable experience but also another shot at building greater brand equity through trust and reputation.