The U.S. economy is working through a period of intense uncertainty right now, with growth forecasts ranging from flat to more than 2%. It just depends on who you ask.
In other words, you’re not imagining it. Things really are in flux right now.
Uncertainty is hard on everyone, but especially entrepreneurs and business executives, whose job it is to plan years out into the future. That’s all but impossible when you have no idea what’s coming next week, let alone six months from now.
Serial entrepreneur and investor Kris Duggan has built and scaled impactful businesses for more than 20 years in some of the most dynamic corners of the tech industry. He has forgotten more than most people know about leading through uncertain times. He spends a lot of his time today sharing this knowledge with less experienced entrepreneurs — setting them up, he hopes, to one day pay it forward themselves.
Here’s what Kris Duggan tells up-and-coming leaders about building businesses in uncertain times.
1. Understand What You Can Control
“Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference,” reads the Serenity Prayer. You might not say it every day, but you’ve heard it, and you probably agree — in theory, at least — with the sentiment.
The problem is, founder culture does not always look favorably on leaders who “accept the things they cannot change.” It’s quite common, in fact, for founders to take something like the opposite position: that there’s nothing they can’t change if only they try.
That might be true over the long arc of history, Duggan says. Who knows what the world will look like 20 years from now, or 50 or 100. Who knows what will be possible then?
However, when we’re talking about macro uncertainty making life difficult (or worse) for your enterprise this year, we can’t afford to skip five business cycles ahead. Your business might not last that long. And so it’s absolutely crucial to understand what about your present circumstances is within your control and what isn’t.
2. Know the Difference Between a Fad and a Trend
You want to chase the latter, not the former.
It’s not so simple, of course. If everyone could distinguish fads from trends with perfect accuracy, there’d be far less upside for those with keener eyes. Business opportunities would vanish almost overnight.
Lean on your experience and your knowledge, and trust your intuition, Duggan says.
“Fear of missing out drives a lot of decision-making in the tech industry, maybe too much,” he says. “If you’re not sure whether the thing everyone is chasing after is ‘real,’ take a beat and do some more research.”
After all, being “early and wrong” is no way to build a durable business.
3. See Talent As a Renewable Resource
The longer you linger around the tech industry, the more skeptical you’ll be of the claim that 20% of tech talent does 80% of the productive work. The AI race has only sharpened the contrast between top performers and everyone else, with the very best ML engineers commanding cash-and-equity packages worth hundreds of millions of dollars, but it’s far from clear those compensation packages are justified.
In fact, successful tech leaders tend to take a more democratic view of talent. While recognizing the very real differences in worker ability and productivity, they know that talent is a resource to be cultivated rather than exploited and harvested — a renewable rather than extractable resource, you might say.
Keep this perspective front and center in your dealings with current and future employees and you’ll find it easier to attract, retain and promote the very best.
4. Admit When You Don’t Have the Answer
No one has all the answers, but only some admit it. Those with the humility — and strength — to do so are much better placed to succeed in the long run, experts say.
That’s because admitting what you don’t know shows that you’re willing to learn new things.
“The key to graciously admitting you don’t know and keeping your credibility is curiosity. If someone is looking for an answer from you that you don’t have, get wildly curious about their question,” says Jodi Flynn, founder and CEO of Women Taking the Lead.
Leaders who learn tend to adapt better than their peers when circumstances change. They deal better with uncertainty, in other words.
5. Adopt an Abundance Mindset
File this one under “cheesy but true.” It’s the overriding principle that leads entrepreneurs to see talent as a “renewable resource” to be nurtured rather than exploited — the idea that the world can expand to make room for our dreams.
Again, cheesy. But time and again, we see that cutthroat business practices (and personnel management) trade short-term gain for long-term pain. Better to take a gentler and more sustainable approach that makes your business more resilient heading into the unknown.
6. Be Ready to “Call It”
This kernel of entrepreneurial wisdom might be the hardest to swallow. It could also be the most important of all.
Everyone with tech industry experience (and most people without it) know that tech startups tend to grow fast and fail fast. Most don’t make it more than a few years before they wind down operations or sell for far less than their founders hoped.
Yet some startups carry on as “zombie businesses” for years longer than they should, slowly burning through what’s left of their business startup capital or eking out a profit that keeps them just this side of viable.
Don’t be like them. If you find your startup in a hole it’s unlikely to emerge from, “call it” sooner rather than later, make your investors as whole as possible, and live to fight another day.
Steady As She Goes
The world is an uncertain place in the best of times. In times like these, it’s all the more daunting.
Entrepreneurs aren’t scared of a little uncertainty, of course, but truly chaotic times make it very difficult to build and sustain a thriving business. All you can do is your best, with a little help from these six universal principles from Kris Duggan.
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