In this third part of the Small Business Survival Toolkit series, Dr Charlene Lew looks at resilience in decision-making. As a faculty member at GIBS, Charlene writes, publishes, and teaches extensively in the space of decision-making, and shares some valuable insights.
Compiled by Tarren Bolton
In this third part of the Small Business Survival Toolkit series, Dr Charlene Lew looks at resilience in decision-making. As a faculty member at GIBS, Charlene writes, publishes, and teaches extensively in the space of decision-making, and shares some valuable insights.
How business owners and small businesses take decisions in a complex post-Covid period is a really important topic – and especially being resilient in our decisions. Business as a whole may not look as positive as it did pre-Covid, and Charlene offers some practical skills that small business owners can use to help them through this uncertain time.
“Resilience is when you face circumstances that are really tough. Being resilient means that you develop skills and competencies that don’t only make you survive and cope, but actually help you to become better and stronger because of the circumstances that you’re facing,” says Charlene.
“It is well-known that small business owners face a number of challenges. I would like to challenge you to think about navigating through this difficult time and become better because of it,” she says.
“In A Long Walk to Freedom, Nelson Mandela wrote, “I’ve discovered that after climbing a great hill, one only finds that there are many more hills to climb.” This shows us that life really is a series of obstacles. If you see it in a positive way, you’ve won of the battle. Another quote from the book is, “I’ve taken a moment here to rest – to steal a view of the glorious vista that surrounds me, to look back on the distance I have come.” That’s what it is to be resilient. We have to pause sometimes just to appreciate the moment. We need to take stock of the victories that we’ve already achieved because when things are difficult, we often ignore those victories,” says Charlene.
“My challenge to you as you face difficulties in your business, is to think about how many different ways you can solve those problems”
Charlene says that very important to your thinking about yourself as being resilient is to really know the purpose for which you’re working. Because not only can you develop once you’ve got your eye on the target, but you can remain resilient as well.
According to Charlene, there are three parts to being resilient: First is your abilities and skills – your ability to cope with challenges and find creative solutions; second is your attitudes and how you view the world and yourself; and third is perseverance – what you’ve achieved and how you keep on achieving despite the hardship. You find ways to adapt, you find ways to grow.
How can you develop your thinking to find opportunities?
Focus on creativity. How can you find creative opportunities? “First, you can think creatively by bringing together different components of life and pulling it together in a unique and unusual way. That’s connective creativity. Or you can practice component creativity by looking at the various elements of the situation you face, and deal with each part separately. Or you could practice your own ‘blank page’ creativity, which simply means that there is an open page in front of you when you are in a challenging situation, and anything is possible.
“Think about how you think about the world and how you think about solving problems,” says Charlene. “In life, most of us have been rewarded for producing ideas, or reproducing ideas that we’ve found to work for other people. The creative, productive thinker looks at multiple different ways of looking at a problem in order to solve it. My challenge to you as you face difficulties in your business, is to think about how many different ways you can solve those problems. That is the key to your resilience – to think in a way that says, ‘’I’m not going to settle for just one solution’.”
Five examples of how creative geniuses think
Look at a problem in a different way: Abandon your first approach and say, there’s something else I can do. There’s a new way I can solve this problem.
Visualise the problem to visualise the solution: We become a lot more creative when we find a way outside of our thinking – it means putting pen to paper, and visualising.
Don’t settle for one great idea: Creative geniuses have typically created a lot of ‘titans’ in their lives. So, challenge yourself – there’s a high quantity of wonderful ideas within you and the one that you’ve had in the past may not be the only one available to you. You can combine things in new ways. You can combine things in dissimilar ways. You can even say, “what if the opposite was true?”, and maybe find a solution in that.
‘Story-board’ the problem: Tell yourself the story of the problem. When we talk in in metaphors, suddenly our brains bring about new ideas and new solutions.
Prepare: Preparation is key so that when a creative opportunity arises, you’ve got a new skill in your arsenal; you’ve got a new competency that you’ve developed. You might not be able to use it right now, but when the opportunity arises, and you’ve prepared, your creativity will meet that opportunity and that will create solutions.
“Resilience is not about putting one’s head in the sand and saying, “It’s not true”. It is allowing yourself to say, I’ve got challenges, but I recognise that every challenge has not only one solution, but multiple solutions, and I will develop the type of thinking that allows me to find those solutions. Each circumstance will be different, but it’s about taking yourself through the thinking process and allowing yourself the type of thinking that says, despite the fact that the entire world is facing what seems like impossible odds, we can still make it, and we can come out better and stronger because of this,” concludes Charlene.
