The Secret To Future-Proofing Your Business? Knowing How To Slow Time Down And “Hyper Focus”

With the world opening up extra with every passing month, many solopreneurs and small enterprise house owners wish to makes certain they’ll preserve the celebration going and insulate themselves from future disruptions.

For concepts, I spoke not too long ago with Ken Tencer, CEO of SpyderWorks, a boutique technique consultancy in Toronto, and host of the Say Hi to the Future Podcast, which focuses on the facility of human ingenuity. His agency hosted the “Hi (Human Ingenuity) Columbus” summit for entrepreneurs, held in November 2021, with the Columbus College of Art and Design, trying on the energy of intelligent, creative and unique pondering. Tencer can be writer of Cause a Disturbance, a e-book on innovation, and The 90% Rule: What’s Your Next Big Opportunity? Here is an edited excerpt of our dialog.

Ken Tencer, host of the Say Hi to the Future Podcast and founding father of SpyderWorks.

Say Hi To the Future

Elaine Pofeldt: How did Covid change your pondering as an entrepreneur?

Ken Tencer: Working 25 years as an entrepreneur, we’ve been by recessions and the Great Recession. There’s no precedent in our lifetime for what we skilled the previous two years. I keep in mind driving dwelling throughout our first main lockdown. It was this unimaginable realization that billions of individuals have been concurrently all going by the identical expertise in the identical 30 days. It was exceptional. When you concentrate on 1 diploma of separation, 2 levels. Here we have been, in actual time and actual life, experiencing the identical factor as everybody else on the earth.

I’ve the nice fortune, and I don’t say it frivolously, of with the ability to pay the hire and put meals on the desk. I do know if it have been 25 years earlier, I wouldn’t have. I began fascinated by younger entrepreneurs, and individuals who had invested all their cash of their companies, and the predicament they should have been in and the emotional duress and the bodily stress that comes out of such excessive uncertainty. There was no secret sauce or pivot for companies caught on the incorrect aspect of this, like lodges and eating places.

There have been plenty of issues that would have knocked me out of enterprise—there weren’t many instructions to show—however then I considered the youthful entrepreneurs. My daughter is a dancer and choreographer, and studios simply shut. She pivoted into social media advertising.

Elaine Pofeldt: What finally helped you navigate the disaster?
Ken Tencer: My late father was a really profitable entrepreneur. He taught me that when issues are unhealthy or powerful, it’s a must to gradual time down. What he meant by that was in case you have a look at the totality of a disaster, it might overwhelm you. You actually have to begin taking a look at all the things as a single problem. What was I going to do with my crew? What was I going to do with my facility? What was I going to do with my service providing?

If it’s overwhelming to consider what you will do at present, what are you able to do within the subsequent quarter-hour? I feel that was probably the greatest classes in disaster administration I ever acquired. Slow time down and hyper deal with a selected process in hand and a selected time-frame: In the following quarter-hour, I’m going to deal with this.

You completely must look forward. Looking forward is among the duties. I am going to my whiteboard and one of many channels is “Something I’ve to consider.” Then I deal with one a part of every at a time. It’s like a checkerboard on the wall. I find yourself working in three or 4 totally different areas every day. I don’t attempt to assault all the things on the similar time. That is what emotionally cripples you. You must unpack every bag individually.
Elaine Pofeldt: How did you discover alternative?
Ken Tencer: There have been companies that basically boomed, components of many companies that boomed. Often, they spoke to issues that individuals have been anxious about. It’s actually laborious to work on long-term technique in the course of a pandemic. So, in my enterprise, we streamlined our service choices to areas that take care of ambiguity and frenetic change.
For occasion, I began a chat on macrotrends. How will we have a look at the longer term? Things that used to occur in 5-10 years which might be taking place in 1-2 years. I created a product out of that, a workshop I may do in particular person or just about. I feel that’s the one factor you are able to do: Figure out what’s actually vital to shoppers. There are nonetheless shoppers and there’s nonetheless an economic system.
We may have flipped the change and stated, “People aren’t taking a look at conventional company technique.” We stepped again as an alternative and requested, “What are they taking a look at and the way do they need it delivered?” We acquired our first program up and going inside 10 enterprise days. We put each single particular person into shifting it onto an internet platform.
Elaine Pofeldt: There are positives in virtually each scenario. What do you hope we’ll maintain onto after the pandemic?
Ken Tencer: It jogged my memory of the significance of ardour, savage curiosity and audacity—it actually got here right down to these three values. There are individuals that basically wish to push the envelope. Beyond that, I hope that extra humanity has crept in and can stay.

https://www.forbes.com/websites/elainepofeldt/2022/04/30/the-secret-to-future-proofing-your-business-knowing-how-to-slow-time-down-and-hyper-focus/