Most companies find out how durable their operating model is at the worst possible time: a recession, a key leader leaving, a major customer walking.
Durable is the most overlooked of the four drivers of enterprise value — Extendable, Scalable, Predictable, Durable — because a business can look completely healthy right up until the moment it's tested.
A durable business holds up through:
➤ A leadership change — performance doesn't depend on one person's judgment calls staying in the building
➤ A demand shock — a downturn exposes discipline instead of exposing dependency
➤ A key employee leaving — the process survives without them, because it was never really "their" process
➤ A rough quarter — the business absorbs it instead of unraveling around it
Most companies never find out which of these they'd fail until they're already failing it. By then, it's not a diagnostic question anymore — it's a crisis.
Durability isn't tested by how the business runs on a normal Tuesday. It's tested by what happens when a normal Tuesday stops showing up.
Which of these would expose your business first — a leadership change, or a downturn?