It’s clear now, more than ever before, that planning for the future looks different for everyone. As the world attempts to emerge from the challenges of 2020, the focus is now on how to become resilient for whatever comes next. So, how can you make sure your social enterprise is in the best position to not just survive but thrive well into the future? Invest in Your Leadership Planning for resilience begins long before any challenges come your way and it begins with your leadership. Whether you’re going solo at the helm of your organisation or you have a leadership team, it’s important that your leaders are equipped with the practical and emotional skills needed to bring your business out the other side in one piece. This might look like leadership courses, conferences, professional development or even books! Learning from experience is great, but when it comes to tackling challenges, you cannot afford to wait for a disaster to hit for the learning experience. Investing in your leadership means thinking ahead and doing everything you can to make sure your leaders are as strong as possible, before disaster hits. Ensure Your Business Has a Purpose-Driven Mission Social enterprises are no strangers to purpose-driven missions but that doesn’t mean that it’s not important to check-in and make sure you’re still on track. When any kind of roadblock appears, it can be easy to just give up if you’re not clear on your purpose, your values, your goals. When those things are solidified, decision making is easier, you can plan for the long term and you can understand exactly what you need to do to bring your organisation through challenges in the most effective way that keeps you on track. This doesn’t mean that having a purpose will magically make the process of dealing with significant challenges any easier or less emotional but it means you have your purpose in sight at all times, driving you forward and helping you to make logical aligned decisions. Best Practice Underpins Decision Making Alongside a clear purpose, there are plenty of things you can do to make sure your decision making is constructive and aligned, not just in stressful times, but when the seas are calmer too.

• Look at the problem from every angle — social enterprises have a lot to think about when it comes to decision making. Consider the impact of any decision from the perspective of leadership, your team, the communities you impact.
• Keep the decision-making team small — too many cooks spoil the broth! Whilst you do need to look at the problem from all angles, it does not mean you should bring in hoards of people to help you make the decision. Keep the team small so that decisions aren’t stalled and you can continue to stay agile.
• Create a checklist — you can do this step right now. Create a checklist of all the things you should consider when making a decision and, when you’re under the pump, refer back to it and work through methodically.
• Watch, analyse, and learn from the outcomes — not every decision you make will have perfect results. Learn from it, record your analysis, good or bad, and use your findings to understand how to create better outcomes in the future.

Prioritise Education Learning about what it takes to stay resilient and agile, no matter the challenges you’re facing is crucial. There are always new resources being released and new things to learn — educating yourself could be the difference between your social enterprise being here in 10 years or falling at the next hurdle. You can learn about disaster resilience informally through the community around you, especially right now as innovation and agility is on full display. You can also engage with leaders in disaster resilience as they share their knowledge and share the latest disaster resilience information. A great way to do this is through the Australian Disaster Resilience Conference presents Knowledge Week.

This year, #ADRC20 Knowledge Week is taking place online from 24-27 August. With all the same speakers and presentations that were touted for the original physical event, this is the best way to hear from a variety of leaders, connect with others and navigate the complexity of large scale disasters — including the global pandemic. You can register right now to make sure you have access to the 4-day event when it all kicks off on 24 August!