When we reframe our understanding of risk to anticipate the unknown and the unexpected, we open ourselves up to asking more open-minded questions that ultimately, help us overcome our bias for safety. We move away from entrenched modalities and begin thinking like a start-up.

The 2020’s have proven to be anything but business as usual. In fact, “usual” seems to now be defined as VUCA – volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous. For business owners and leadership managing risks during VUCA environments takes intention, focus and an aligned team.

Watch the session now.

Whether you’re a diehard fan of new year’s resolutions or you’d prefer to ditch the resolutions in favor of something less rigid, there is something to be said about the power of strategic planning, specifically the act of setting goals, at the beginning of a new year. Much like wayfinding, goals are the signposts helping us navigate through uncharted or difficult territory. They’re how we can step back and take stock of our progress and determine what remains to be done.

Your 2022 goals mattered at the beginning of the year. Do they now?

While writing down goals is an important step in achieving them, so is regular review. If it’s been a while since you looked at your 2022 goals, there is no time like now to see how you are doing.

Timing is everything and four other tips for growing your business.

Each business has risks they need to navigate and mitigate. The real question is which may impact the enterprise value of your business.

How do I know how risk is affecting my value drivers? If you are a business owner, the answer to this question is important to you.

What makes your business money, may not be what drives value in it. Enterprise value comes from specific drivers and knowing your company's is important.

How do I know my value drivers? If you are a business owner, the answer to this question is important to you.

In November 2021 we heard from Joe Slatter, instructor of Introduction to Decision Dynamics – powered by Better Practice™. Joe will offer insight into his methodology that teaches teams to figure out what matters together, make better decisions faster and act together with grace and accountability. Joe calls this metacollaboration. Joe has worked with thousands of business owners and individuals to help their organizations improve self-leadership and work more effectively together.

This session will:

- Highlight the importance of cross-functional collaboration

- Explore ways to improve communication

- Understand ways to expedite team focus

- Determine next steps to better collaborate

Metrics and tracking progress are important to understand if you are better or worse than you have been. Tracking is one thing, but developing the scoreboard to track the things that matter is also important.

How do I develop a value tracking scoreboard with good key performance indicators? If you are a business owner, the answer to this question is important to you.

Business owners often keep reinvesting their own capital into their business. However, sometimes it makes solid financial and business sense to use debt. How do I know when to use debt to grow?

If you are a business owner, the answer to this question is important to you.

This book will introduce you to the new disciplines of agile strategy and collaborative leadership. Learn how to navigate an unpredictable future through the fast and agile development of complex collaborations, using a set of ten practical skills.

Sean Hutchinson, RFN Global Partner, and Robert Johannigman, RFN Advisory Group Senior Advisor will be discussing concepts like intentional growth, growth hacking and the next-right customer approach to gear up and accelerate out of the recession.

Learning Objectives:

1. Understand aspects of an intentional growth strategy

2. Discover the next-right-customer approach to growth

3. Learn how growth can decrease the value of your company

4. Uncover three crucial principles for a thriving growth culture

5. Understand the most common issues impacting profitability in periods of rapid growth

Branding may seem like something only multi-nationals can afford to invest in. However, it is one of the least costly ways to build your business’s profile and gain market recognition.

COVID-19 has offered opportunities for companies to build their brand and improve consumer perception. Join Guillermo Mazier, Kim Powell and guest speaker Whitney Siemens of ChangeMakers: an Argyle company, as they offer some branding best practices and how to use this crisis to improve or build your brand.

Learning Objectives:

1. Learn about the elements of a brand and why it matters to your business.

2. Discuss the value of a brand in times of crisis and some who have done well during COVID.

3. Learn how to impact the perception of your brand in the eyes of your customer.

4. Get a sense for what to avoid when managing and building your brand.

Our next session focuses on cost restructuring facilitated by Sean Hutchinson, RFN Global featuring speakers Cindy Reid-Shelton, RFN Global and Julie Keyes, Keyes Strategies will discuss how to analyze and improve cash flows and explore opportunities to strategically restructure costs in this rapidly changing environment.

Regardless of the industry, an organization’s culture and its employees can hinder cash management. It is important operational efficiencies, risk assessments and proper forecasting are evaluated as you accelerate out of this economic crisis.

Learning Objectives:

1. Explore operational efficiencies

2. Learn how financial forecasting can assist in taking control of cash flow

3. Discover the elusive balance of cutting costs and investing to take advantage of the crisis

4. Learn how to manage cash flows to become lean, mean and acceleration ready

In these times of uncertainty, leadership matters more than ever. This session will help you identify relevant and useful practices to set a course for a more “agile” approach to leadership. It includes choosing an optimistic attitude others can share, inviting real, creative conversations and supporting accountability and collaboration, while supporting leadership at all levels.

Learning Objectives

1. Understand why leadership matters more than ever in times of uncertainty

2. Identify useful practices that promote performance and resilience

3. Learn what leadership competencies deliver more impact on business results

Ready for Next - Accelerating out of a Recession

Session 1: Embracing Uncertainty

Joe Slatter, John Lazar and Janyce Fadden introduced and discussed ways of seeing and understanding our current environment.

Learning Objectives

1. Introduce and discuss ways of seeing and understanding our environment that are particularly well suited to volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous times.

2. Explore ways to set goals and plan effectively in periods of uncertainty.

3. Learn from each other. What's working? What's not?