There is always a reason to wait.
Wait for interest rates to come down. Wait for inflation to settle. Wait until hiring gets easier. Wait until consumers feel more confident. Wait until the election is over, the housing market improves or we have a little more certainty about what comes next.
Business owners have become pretty good at waiting for normal.
I’m beginning to wonder whether normal is coming back.
Maybe the more important question is whether we need it to.
Over the past several years, businesses have navigated a pandemic, supply chain disruptions, inflation, labor shortages, rising interest rates, rapidly changing technology and shifts in how and where people work. Artificial intelligence is now changing jobs and business models at a pace we’re only beginning to understand.
And just when one challenge begins to settle down, another seems to take its place.
At some point, uncertainty stops being a temporary condition and simply becomes part of doing business.
That may sound pessimistic. I don’t think it is.
I think it’s an opportunity to reconsider what makes a business strong.
For a long time, strategic planning was largely about predicting what would happen next. Where will the economy be in three years? What will customers want? How quickly will the market grow? What will it cost to borrow money?
Those are still important questions.
But perhaps the better question for business owners today is this: How quickly can we adjust when we’re wrong?
That’s a different way of thinking about the future.
It means maintaining enough financial flexibility to absorb a difficult quarter. It means paying attention to customers instead of assuming they’ll behave tomorrow the way they did yesterday. It means developing employees who can learn new skills as technology changes their jobs.
And increasingly, it means being willing to change something that is still working before circumstances force you to.
There are examples throughout this issue of Kitsap Business.
Olympic College is expanding programs and working with employers as workforce needs change. President Chantae Recasner talks about preparing students not simply to use new technology, but to think critically, adapt and bring the human skills technology cannot replace.
Safe Boats International is investing in welding and fabrication training as the maritime industry faces workforce shortages. Olympic College is launching a computer science associate degree to create another pathway into technology careers here in Kitsap County.
These aren’t predictions about exactly what the economy will look like five years from now.
They’re investments in the ability to respond to whatever it looks like.
I think small businesses should be thinking the same way.
We sometimes assume resilience means surviving difficult circumstances. That’s certainly part of it. But resilience in business isn’t just hanging on until conditions improve.
It’s building a company that can change.
That might mean adding a new service because customers are asking for something different. It might mean using technology to eliminate work that no longer needs to be done manually. It could mean training someone already on your team rather than waiting months to find the perfect employee.
It could also mean deciding that an old way of doing business has run its course.
None of those decisions require knowing exactly what happens next.
They require paying attention.
One of the advantages small businesses have is that we can move. We don’t need six committees and a yearlong strategic review to change direction. We can listen to a customer on Tuesday and try something different on Wednesday.
That’s easy to forget when uncertainty makes us cautious.
Caution has its place. There are times to preserve cash, postpone an expansion or decide that an opportunity isn’t worth the risk.
But there is a difference between being cautious and standing still.
The businesses that emerge strongest from this period probably won’t be the ones that correctly predicted interest rates, inflation, artificial intelligence or consumer spending.
They’ll be the ones that built organizations capable of responding when those things changed.
As we head toward the final months of 2026 and begin thinking about 2027, that’s worth considering.
Don’t build your business plan around the assumption that everything will finally settle down.
Build a business that doesn’t need it to.
Stop waiting for the perfect economy.
It probably isn’t coming.
And maybe that’s OK.
Terry Ward
Publisher, Kitsap Business
