At all times, and cetainly now in uncertain economic conditions, businesses have to have the flexibility, scalability and agility to adjust and adapt to changing circumstances. Rigid corporate structures and the inability to act quickly can spell defeat for companies who need to be running lean and mean in the current recession.

This recent column gives some great insight on this issue:

“Changing times call for changing tactics. You have to adjust and change to remain lightning-fast in your approach. One of the tried and true sayings of the American Old West was, “There are two kinds of people: The quick and the dead.” You had to move fast back then to out maneuver the competition or you could literally die.

“Fortunately today we don’t have to resort to gun slinging or a lot of target practice to remain alive. Yet, the principle of being fast applies to you and me in our businesses today. We have to relinquish the old ways that might have worked before but need to be altered for today’s new challenges.

“There’s another old saying, “If you keep on doing what you’ve already done, you’ll keep on getting what you already got.” That was used over and over in the 60′s, 70′s and 80′s by motivational speakers. Their point was that you have to do something different or you’ll stay the same.

“Today that has changed. If you keep doing those activities and deploying the same tactics that got you to where you were for yesterday’s success, you will NOT “keep getting what you’ve already got.” You will fall further and further behind. You will no longer be part of the “quick” but find yourself in the “dead business” category.”

Read the full article: “Speed, flexibility and adaptability are your keys to change.”

Is your business set up well for quick decision making and operational flexibility? Does your core business model lend itself to surviving rapidly shifting conditions? If you haven’t yet, now more than ever you need to be focusing on your long term business continuity planning and developing a strong core through talent identification and management. Learn more about talent management and business continuity planning.

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