This has been a scary couple of years. Owners that have had a reliable business for years, experienced huge volatility, even extinction. Some owners have been on the verge of closing but then figured a way to keep the business going and keep the employees working.

Some owners just shifted the work. A friend that owns a training company told me that since he couldn't go out and do face to face training, they worked on developing more and better training material.

You think you have things back in control and get lulled into thinking things are just fine when all of a sudden something pops out at you from behind the bushes. You need to react but because it hadn't happened before you don't exactly know what to do. Understanding your business to its core and the markets and customers you serve are the keys to being able to pivot in the face of danger.

Biltmore and bears

A couple of years ago, my wife and I were on an extended motorcycle trip, and we visited the Biltmore Estate and Mansion in Asheville, NC. A truly incredible place to visit for both the house and the grounds. The front gate is about 1 1/2 to 2 miles from the main house. The estate has about 10-15 miles of roads to navigate from the village to the house and elsewhere on the property.

The grounds are remarkable because they were created for George Vanderbilt by Fredrick Law Olmstead around 1890-1895. Olmstead is famous for his work on a few other places you might have heard about - Central Park in New York, the Columbian Exposition in Chicago in 1893, the Niagara Reservation, the University of Chicago campus, the planned community of Riverside, IL. Olmstead was also one of the founders of the American Society of Landscape Architects as well as the Biltmore Forest School, the first school of Forestry in the nation.

Olmstead's vision for the Biltmore estate was to create a new experience at nearly every turn on the road from the gate house to the mansion. It was to be cultivated to look wild, making sure that valuable species were preserved while introducing new species that could survive that would entertain and enlighten visitors.

The original 125,000 acres is at the base of the Adirondack forest. While the property was divided and parts sold to the government to create the Pisgah National Forest, much of the 8,000 acre estate is still very wild.

While we were sitting having some lunch between the different tours of the house and grounds, we sat next to a couple that also really enjoyed not only the house but the grounds. They then told us the story of confronting a black bear near the road that leads to the house. My wife and I turned to one another, "a black bear on the road?"

You might have forgotten that we were visiting the estate on a motorcycle. No doors or sides. No way to stop a black bear from coming at us. Our only hope, should we encounter a black bear on the road, which we were later told was definitely a possibility, was my riding ability to turn quickly, avoid obstacles, and speed.

This leads me to asking you about your ability to pivot and turn your business should you encounter a "bear".

Complacency

As business owners we think we know everything there is to know about our business. And some truly do. But for most, the concern is just the overall sales that are coming in the door and the profit that gets put into the bank. I have seen this to be true whether the owner started the company, a family member started the company, or the company was purchased from someone else. We just get lulled into the regularity of it all.

Most of the time, all is right with the world. But there has been a disturbing trend that I have witnessed over the last few decades. We all know that the economy swings back and forth every so often. What I have identified is that there is a minor business crises every 2-4 years, and a major crises every 5-8 years. Each of these events hit different sectors of the economy but most have some spill over into other sectors. The huge housing crises of 2008 hit not just the financial sector but also construction, building materials, auto construction and sales, and more. Some of it linked but some of it a fallout of a really bad situation overall.

Your future with your company will dependent on how you respond to both the minor as well major crises. Think of it like the bear in the woods. Sometimes you don't know that there are bears. Sometimes you know that there are bears but not in your vicinity. Some might be lurking just around the bend waiting to pounce.

How can you respond?

What are your abilities to get away from that danger? How resilient are you, your employees, and your company? How well does everyone handle stress? How well does everyone handle the unknown? How well can everyone bounce back from disaster?

Your employees will be looking to you for direction, guidance. Your ability to truly understand your strengths and your weaknesses and to frame them with the reality at hand is vital. You can't use rose colored glasses when everything is on the line. Be honest with yourself. Then be honest with your employees.

As a performing motorcyclist, I practice with our group every week. We place riders in different positions so they can get a feel from different perspectives. We practice maneuvers first walking them, then at slow speed then at regular speed. We also train on how to avoid a crash, how to bail out, how to not hit someone. If someone isn't able to make a hard inside right turn then they need to moved to a different position or moved out temporarily until their skills have improved. (With us training that person so as to build up skills and confidence.)

This regular practice gets us ready to handle different situations that come up. So, just like regular practice in a motorcycle group, when you "practice" on your business, going in different directions, how to bail or avoid a crash, you can be ready to handle anything that comes up.