From Crisis to Opportunity
Albert Einstein famously said, “in the midst of every crisis, lies great opportunity.” There is no question that the Pandemic is one of the greatest global crises witnessed in recent history, leaving a devastating trail. However, a look back in history illustrates that crises can be useful for directing individuals, nations, and the world to solutions. Out of crises can emerge new and incredible opportunities, particularly if traditional approaches and paradigms are questioned and challenged. During a crisis, incentives and motivations change, potentially leading to new cooperative behaviours and even to the creation of new systems or structures.
In my life, I have found my greatest periods of personal and professional growth have followed a crisis. This is only possible if we are able to rise above the chaos and seize the moment to turn the quiescent opportunities brought by crisis into reality.
I see these parallels every day in the world of business and entrepreneurship. I am passionate about building and cultivating disruptive, transformative institutions that will emerge initially as regional champions and go on to be global challengers. I mobilize capital and harness the power of the limitless mindsets of founders to innovate and transform. However, this process is rarely without setbacks, and challenges which may at times seem insurmountable.
For entrepreneurs to propitiously convert cases of retreat into opportunities for reinvention, here are a few tips I’ve personally found helpful in creating opportunities while navigating through crises.
Define a clear purpose
It was the Canadian writer, Oriah Moiuntain dreamer who said, “It doesn’t interest me what you do for a living. I want to know what you ache for, and if you dream of meeting your heart’s longing.”
Change is often difficult. Defining a true sense of Purpose underpinned by values, is critical, especially given the need to prioritize in a world of time and resource constraints.
In most cases, these priorities might vary depending on the phase of growth a business is in or the type of business. However, one thing that must always take centre stage is alignment with your underlying purpose as a founder and business. I think it’s more important than ever before to know your purpose and to be able to articulate it, put it in writing and then live it
For me, ‘the why’ is always more important than the what and how. It is ‘the why’ that gets you through those difficult times. It is ‘the why’ that allows you to succeed by being utterly resilient while remaining faithfully congruent. It is ‘the why’ that empowers you and makes the path clear.
The why’ is always
more important than
the what and how…”
-Temi Marcella Awogboro
Passion drives performance
The level of a venture’s innovation, performance and resilience is also linked to entrepreneurial passion. Without it, it’s almost impossible to persuade a team of individuals to give themselves to your idea or to convince investors to back it and ultimately to gain paying clients.
Passion is often contagious, and beneficial in cases where it is not felt by one individual alone. I’ve found that passionate teams play a large role in determining a venture’s performance. If Purpose is the reason you journey, passion is the fire that lights the way.
If Purpose is the reason you journey,
passion is the fire that lights the way.”
-Temi Marcella Awogboro
A research which surveyed 107 entrepreneurial teams participating in an accelerator program found that entrepreneurial passion is positively related to team outcomes due to the positive emotions it brings about, and conversely, diversity of passion among individual team members has a negative relationship with team performance.
In the words of E. M. Forster, “One person with passion is better than forty people merely interested.”
Learn, Unlearn and Relearn
Alvin Toffler once asserted that “the illiterate of the 21st Century are not those who cannot read and write but those who cannot learn, unlearn and relearn”. The pandemic and our constantly advancing technological environment will no doubt make work more demanding, and old concepts that we are already used to will have to give way to new propositions, ideas, methods and processes.
Hence, once you have studied your situation and identified your strategy, keep an open mind and understand that the ideas you implement today will need to be reviewed and refined over time. Be ready to adjust appropriately to conditions so you can take advantage of the situation. The one who unlearns is constantly open to modern processes and will more readily appreciate the opportunity to grow especially in times of distress.
The 2021 Workplace Learning Report compiled by LinkedIn buttresses this point. The report which factored responses from 5,154 professionals spanning 27 countries found out that about 63% of global professionals agree that learning and development (L&D) should maintain an elevated role in any organization. More than half of them (59%) opined that this should take top priority in firms with a view of upskilling and reskilling other team members.
In a world that is currently inundated with problems, entrepreneurs must belong to a community as it provides shared resources, linkages, mutual trust and access to a knowledge pool that can prove very invaluable in converting latent opportunities.
The illiterate of the 21st Century
are not those who cannot read and
write but those who cannot learn,
unlearn and relearn”.
-Alvin Toffler
Accelerate the transition to agility
In this rapidly evolving world of business and economic growth, becoming agile is no longer just some catchword for Fortune500 companies or for corporate managers. Entrepreneurs must also be agile, daily proving themselves capable of surmounting obstacles in the most flexible and adaptable way anyone can imagine. As entrepreneurs, we must constantly redefine that which is conventional and evolve to that point where we are comfortable with taking control in a crisis.
Very few, if any, ever get it right in the first trial. From Thomas Edison to Bill Gates, Steve Jobs and Elon Musk, stories abound of famous entrepreneurs who failed before making it big. According to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, approximately 20% of new businesses fail during the first two years of being open, 45% during the first five years, and 65% during the first 10 years. Only 25% of new businesses make it to 15 years or more.
Many of life’s failures are people
who did not realize how close
they were to success when they gave up”
–Thomas Edison
Agility also requires innovation, realizing that failures are only just opportunities to do better than you had done before. Be willing to take risks, reiterating, revising, and reprioritizing along the way. Make authority decentralized; giving smaller teams control over certain decisions will save time and bring ease.
Align strategy with sustainability
Sustainability dictates that your business creates long term value while factoring in environmental, social and economic influences.
The pandemic and an ever-increasing awareness about sustainability now mean that passion, creativity, and lean operating practices that come naturally to most entrepreneurs must now align seamlessly with an embedded sustainability strategy.
Economic and technological progress at any price is unsustainable, and no longer feasible; societal development and environmental impact must be considered. New and existing ventures are increasingly aware of the need to adopt sustainable practices—within their organization and their interaction with the societal and physical environments.
Sustainable entrepreneurship is consistently recognized as an important engine for economic and non-economic development, a driver of job creation, and a supplier of innovative products and services. Embedding sustainability in your business model from inception is critical for long term survival and outperformance.
Plan ahead for crisis
The pandemic has thrown humanity into a prolonged period of uncertainty. . Business and entrepreneurship can also come with a lot of uncertainty, making it imperative to plan ahead for actionable steps that can be taken before, during and after any crisis.
For this to happen, entrepreneurs must take time to analyse ‘what will be’ rather than how to react to ‘what is’. Getting ahead of the market, predicting consumer behaviour and trends is the only way to excel in the game.
You cannot plan for everything (no matter how hard you try), but you can at least be prepared and resilient when the next crisis happens. Only then, do we have the chance to turn crisis into opportunity.
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