A stiff branch breaks in the winds of change.

If you’ve ever seen a large, healthy tree weather a storm, you’ll notice that although the trunk is relatively stiff, it remains flexible. The smaller branches, likewise, sway gently in the wind. Unless the storm is so severe that it destroys everything in its path, the tree appears with some minor damage, but mostly intact. The “secret” of the tree is to be rigidly flexible and flexibly rigid. A sick or dying tree soon breaks down and expires.

The tree analogy is the key to business survival, especially in the storm of tough economic times. The bigger the storm, the more the company must remain rigid and flexible in order to survive. The most successful companies have learned well how to do this.

A company must first have a core to which it is always committed. The term rigid it means that it cannot be changed. It must depend on this core to be the stabilizing force on which to keep the company on the ground. It is this core that will hold the company together through tough times. The company must be rigid.

However, to continue to prosper, a business must also flexible, bending without breaking. As in nature, the key to survival is adaptation. It is this flexibility that allows the company to meet the changing needs of its customers without breaking down, to adapt.

The business world is dynamic. Businesses that remain static are generally short-lived, regardless of how successful they may be at any given time. It is one thing to be the first, but quite another to stay there.

For many, the “Bowmar Brain” is synonymous with the first electronic pocket calculator. It was the first. In the mid-1970s, when the calculator boom was in full swing, Bowmar couldn’t get enough IC chips from its suppliers and couldn’t keep up with the market for low cost and new features. In 1976, the company declared bankruptcy. In short, they weren’t flexible enough to adapt.

Ironically, some of the Bowmar employees saw what was coming, but no one bothered to survey the employees for information. In hindsight, if the company’s leaders had been astute enough to look inward, the results could have been dramatically different.

What do your employees know about your company that you don’t?

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