Plans With Adaptability, Flexibility And Agility

If you are a business just starting your international business development you will be drawing up plans and strategies.

But, before you do, let’s look at a couple of personality traits.

Remember, international business means cross-cultural communication. Personal traits can influence the success of your business’ cross-cultural communication.

Two Extremes

First, let’s imagine someone who works well with plans.

And, let’s also imagine someone who considers himself more “creative”…adaptive, flexible, agile… and does not like planning things out.

These two people have different styles in implementing change.

The natural planner will go about implementing change methodically.

The natural creative will go about implementing change in an intuitive way.

In the end, a project’s success depends on many other factors. And both people have a good chance of getting the job done well.

Right..?

Well, in international business, this can really go wrong.

In The Middle

You might want to have a closer look at personality traits.

A business entering a new foreign market needs people who are good at both.

• You need to plan your international development strategy, to make sure you cover everything you need to cover.
• You also need a very high dose of “creativity”, or… adaptability, flexibility and agility.

If you are not familiar with a foreign culture you need to expect change… even if you are familiar with a foreign culture. Surprises still happen.

Some of the small businesses I meet question the risk involved. The risk involved in going international. This is a very natural concern.

So is another question that comes up: how can I anticipate and control the viability of my international project?

The answers to these questions are multifaceted. But…

There is one very clear place to start:

• A good plan… with adaptability, flexibility and agility.

Learn Through Practice

Of course, there are also people who are naturally both planners and “creatives”. It is great if you can have such people on your international business team.

But it is not essential…

Most people learn to acquire the missing skills through practice. It is hard to hide from any cultural differences for a long time.

You simply cannot stay very long at either extreme without this interfering with your international business.

Your international business plan is important. And so is:

• Your adaptability to a different culture, market, habits, expectations, laws.
• Your flexibility to meet these differences.
• Your agility to respond to these differences.

Planning and flexibility can go together. It just takes a little bit more work, and motivation, to integrate the two together.