The single most important thing in business – agility.

When I as a youngster at school I used to admire all the sports men and women. Seeing that I was not a great sportsman myself, it was a treat to see how these men and woman would push their bodies’ to the limits.

When I grew older I found my one and only love; horse riding. Horse riding, in the end was the sport that pushed my body and mind to its limits. Only then did I realise what agility meant and how to build on this. Agility would manifest in different shapes and forms, throughout my life in various aspects.

The term agility gets used in conversations across the world and in different languages. Some may think that agility is only used to describe success and standing out from the crowd. As much as this is true, do I also believe that agility is the way you pick yourself up from a fall, handling criticism or even dealing with disappointment?

I always wondered how great business-men and women with major companies do it. I mean, how do they deal with stress or criticism? If you look at it, they are at the helm of companies that sometimes deal with millions, if not billions of Rands.  How do they deal with the responsibilities that come with this and all the people in the company that depend on them to make the right decisions?

As in life, also in the business world do you get constant competition for your company or product to be the best. Let’s face it, no one ever truly enjoys coming second. That is why constant competition keeps them striving for more, always bigger and better. This is where agility comes in. That special thing that allows you to bounce back, make critical decisions in a matter of seconds and to think ahead.

To think ahead in the business world means  that a business should keep up with trends and make sure that they have the right people in place to help and assist in making the right choices. This can also be seen as resources that should be in place. Is it safe to say that resources can be seen as agile?

If this can be explained to a business owner I’m positive that they would agree. The most important part of a business is the people, the service and other resources.  And the key to a successful company is the ability of all its resources to grow with change – aka, agility.

What a business owner will need to look out for in his business is to implement systems that will insure growth and improve agility. Ask any business owner what defines the success of a business and the answer is almost always the same. To be ahead of their competitors is almost second nature to them. Being ahead in your line of business gives you space to develop your niche market and to be seen as the leader in that specific field.

As I mentioned earlier your resources should be the driving force behind your company.  When proper resources are in place is it easy for businesses to make promises, because they are more than prepared to follow through on those promises. Promises are the fundamentals of building strong and lasting relationships with your customers.

The great thing is that all of us, in our own special way possess agility.