How to Make Your Business More Resilient Regardless of Who’s in Office

With each shift in administration after a national election comes a wave of new policies, priorities, and uncertainties. Business owners everywhere are left wondering how the latest changes will impact their bottom line. While it’s tempting to focus on what’s happening in Washington, the truth is, that no political figure or policy is going to make or break your business. Success doesn’t hinge on who’s in office—it’s about building a resilient business that can thrive in any political or economic environment.

In his book Four Thousand Weeks, Oliver Burkeman reminds us, “What you pay attention to will define, for you, what reality is.” It’s a simple but profound truth: the things we focus on—good or bad—shape our actions, decisions, and ultimately, our outcomes.

For many business leaders, it’s easy to blame external factors for our challenges. A fluctuating economy, new government policies, disruptive competitors—these are common culprits when things aren’t going well.

Overcoming the “Villain Mindset”

The reality is that while elections and policy changes may influence economic trends, they’re rarely the root cause of your business challenges—and they won’t be the silver bullet that solves them. The best companies succeed no matter who’s in office because they focus on what they can control.

Focusing too much on external factors can trap organizations in a “villain mindset” where leaders focus on finding someone or something to blame instead of owning their role in the situation. It’s an easy way to avoid tough conversations about the internal problems holding your business back, but it’s also a guaranteed way to ensure nothing improves.

Rather than devoting energy toward making excuses for your company’s poor performance, focus on identifying the root causes of its shortcomings and formulating solutions. Remember, operational excellence is what enables sustainable growth.

If your organization has been guilty of playing the blame game, it’s time for a pivot. If you’re ready to shift from excuses to solutions, here’s how to build resilience into your business DNA.

Steps to Making Your Business More Resilient

Step 1: Assess Your Business with Honesty

I advise most companies to start their shift away from pointing the finger of blame by getting a clear, unvarnished view of their company’s current state of affairs. This isn’t about surface-level assessments or feel-good insights. It’s about digging into the data and asking tough questions.

A straightforward way to do this is by conducting a SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats) analysis. One aspect of the SWOT process involves analyzing potential developments in the market that could affect your business, but this is just one, not the only factor to consider:

• Dive deep into your metrics. For example, let’s assume the data says it’s taking you 15% longer to finish projects than planned. Based on some clues, you may hypothesize that project managers aren’t actively communicating about project schedules. Employee surveys, interviews, and observations are a great way to explore such hypotheses. Let the numbers guide your decisions, not your emotions.

• Talk to customers. Survey your customers to understand what matters most to them and how you stack up against the competition. Whatever your industry, don’t make the mistake of thinking that relationships can take a backseat to pricing, design, or product features. Keeping customer relationships “warm,” even when a sale isn’t immediately forthcoming, can pay huge long-term dividends.

• Pull benchmarking data from around the industry. This information can not only help you assess how your company compares to others, but it can also point to opportunities for strategic partnerships.

• Anticipate disruptions. If you pay close attention, the warning signs of factors that can disrupt your cash flow are always present. Instead of fretting over what the next administration might do, analyze credible trends and prepare accordingly. But if you determine a plausible threat to your organization’s well-being, start strategizing how you might respond.

Step 2: Standardize and Optimize Operations

Imagine you are the plant manager at a Coca-Cola manufacturing and bottling plant, and one of your shift managers decides to deviate from the established production process. His change allows him to produce more than any other manager, but the finished product is less consistent than the standard, which may upset Coke’s customer base. Headquarters may ultimately decide that risk is minimal and install the new process for the whole facility, but it is not okay for your plant to have inconsistent processes.

Many of my clients chuckle a little when I offer them this hypothetical. They can envision the massive fallout the actions of that rogue shift manager could bring. But they stop smiling when I point out how much their ad hoc approach to operations parallels that of the Coke factory in the story.

One of the primary reasons businesses struggle to adapt to change and avoid feast-or-famine cycles is that they fail to standardize their operating procedures and fix those that are not working well. To ensure optimal business processes, take the following steps:

• Document. Identify each core, supporting, and sub-process within your organization. Core processes are profit-generating—bidding on a new project, for example; supporting processes include recruiting staff and training and upskilling them as needed; sub-processes include steps you need to take to enact core or supporting processes.

• Refine. Look for sub-optimal processes and prioritize fixing them. How do you know if a process is sub-optimal? Check your KPIs and determine how well your current way of doing things serves your goals. Consider: Where do you want to be in business three years from now? What will be different and better than it is today? Then, ask yourself what needs to change to make that vision a reality. Refining your processes may cost you in the short term, but it’s an investment in your long-term growth and resilience.

• Build. If you uncover systemic gaps—areas of your business where a process is missing entirely or is being done differently by different staff members—you must create a new process to fill that gap. The goal is efficiency, not complexity. See if anyone you trust and respect in the industry has processes you can adopt and adapt.

Once you’ve standardized your operations, make sure everyone in the company receives training on how to do things going forward. But don’t consider the matter done forever. If a team member has an idea for an improvement or innovation, hear them out. If the idea has merit, a test group should compare methods. Then your company should adopt the best method, document it, train employees, and adjust supervisory structures to accommodate it.

Step 3: Take Personal Responsibility and Lead by Example

It may be a cliche, but it’s true: responsibility begins at the top. Leaders hoping to create more resilient and adaptable organizations must demonstrate the behaviors they expect to see in the staff at large.

• Own mistakes and frame them as learning opportunities. This shift will be particularly challenging if employees have become used to placing blame for their errors. Only by seeing leadership practice what they preach will employees feel the psychological safety necessary to feel comfortable being authentic, sharing their thoughts openly, learning from mistakes, and innovating.

• Celebrate individual contributions that bolster a “hero” mindset. Nothing helps employees overcome a villain mindset more than seeing proactive, responsibility-taking behavior rewarded. Focusing recognition on outcomes like hitting revenue targets or closing big deals is natural, but these target outcomes may not happen every day, week, or even month. So, when it comes to celebrating wins, focus less on the big picture and more on the admirable actions of the people who contribute to those outcomes, reframing the act of doing the right things every day as a win.

Lessons from History: Resilience Wins

If past crises like the 2008 financial crisis and the Covid-19 pandemic show us anything, it’s that the most severe upsets are never those you see coming. But history shows us that organizations that focus on operational excellence and building a company culture that prioritizes taking action over placing blame can thrive even amid political and economic turbulence. Consider:

• Amazon: During the Covid-19 pandemic, this online shopping giant enjoyed a massive increase in sales. But rather than rest on its laurels, the company took the opportunity to expand its logistics network, buying up retail spaces formerly occupied by Sears and JCPenney so it could speed up its distribution capabilities and hedge against the kinds of delays experienced in the early months of the global health crisis.

• The New York Times: The rise of the internet caught many print media stalwarts off-guard, and over the past two decades, a host of once-notable news brands have fallen by the wayside. But not the Times. Rather than cling to print, the company adapted and focused on making its digital subscription noteworthy. As of November 2024, the company enjoyed record profits and boasted 11 million subscribers.

It’s not just big names that successfully ride waves of uncertainty. America’s millions of small businesses may not make headlines when they demonstrate resilience, but consider, for example, how many restaurants in your community adapted during the pandemic. They shifted to delivery models or outdoor dining. Gyms began offering virtual classes. White-collar industries worldwide learned how to optimize productivity in work-from-home environments.

Stop Looking for a Villain

While it’s tempting to blame external circumstances for business struggles, focusing more on what you can influence directly will nurture the kind of problem-solving, agile mindset that increases your chances of success. The question isn’t whether challenges will come. They will. The question is whether your business is built to handle them.

Stop looking for a villain. Stop waiting for certainty. Instead, start building a business capable of thriving in any climate.

FAQs on How to Build a Resilient Business

About the Author

Post by: Chad Prinkey

Chad Prinkey is the founder and CEO of Well Built Construction Consulting, dedicated to empowering small to mid-sized construction firms, including general contractors, construction managers, specialty contractors, and developers. With a hands-on approach, Chad focuses on operational excellence, strategic leadership, and team enhancement. He is the author of the best-selling book Well Built: How the Top 2% of Construction Contractors Create Superior Value, Profits, and Excellence (June 2024), which provides a road map for achieving operational success. He also hosts The Morning Huddle podcast, sharing expert insights across the construction industry.

Company: Well Built Construction Consulting
Website: www.wellbuiltconsulting.com
Connect with me on LinkedIn.