Reviving Our Resourcefulness

In a presentation I wrote late last year, I suggested that 2009 was the year of resilience. Companies that weathered the economic storm were flexible, prepared and displayed a spirit that carried them and their employees and customers over the waves that were crashing around them. Maybe we were battered but we were standing.

For 2010, I suggest that we and our businesses build on our resilience and harness our resourcefulness to be successful. In my blog a couple of weeks ago, I predicted that companies would be Bold or Bewildered this year. Bold companies will be resourceful. Americans and the businesses we've built have demonstrated for the past 234 years that we can be inventive and practical; optimistic and realistic. In 2009, we made do with less and hoped for the best. In 2010, we need to make better with the same and achieve greater results.

In a new book called Identity Economics, economists George Akerlof and Rachel Kranton suggest that an economy works well when people personally identify with it, so that their self-esteem is tied up with its activities. The military has known this and employed it with its mission-critical message. Few soldiers enlist for the pay, so why are they willing to sacrifice their lives? It's because they believe in the cause, in themselves and in one another.

While few jobs can match the cause of defending one's country, it's not a stretch to suggest that our businesses cannot be resourceful with a disinterested and insecure workforce. It's time to restore that faith in what we all are capable of doing in our organizations. Here are a few thoughts:

• Have a Mission that clearly articulates your Purpose. Leaders have to carry that banner wherever they are. They talk about it. They write about it. They act on it. Do it often enough and employees will believe it, your customers will feel it and your competition will worry about it.

• High Aspirations, Modest Resources: A phrase coined by Sir Richard Branson when asked how Virgin Airways took on British Airways and won the transatlantic air war. Keeping vision and strategy clearly in mind; conveying their importance and making decisions based on both creates an authenticity that people recognize and like. Branson said that his winning secret was creating a "we're all in this together" mindset by involving everyone who worked for him and their customers in the process of defining a fun, cost-effective and different flying experience.

• Make Better With the Same: Notice I didn't say do more with less. What have you got in your company that hasn't been used, deployed, exploited or improved in a long time? Employees' ideas? Loyal customers? Old procedures? Half-used technology? This is the time to harness the brainpower you have, the revenue you've acquired, the technology you've bought and the processes you've grown and take a critical look at how you can get more out of what you have.

What are your companies doing to make 2010 better than 2009? Are you hunkering down or rediscovering how resourceful you are?