With the life sciences industry well into year five of a sustained downturn, one hot topic among leaders is how to survive difficult market conditions. It’s something I’ve thought a lot about as I launched Catalyst Advisors during the onset of the financial crisis in the spring of 2008.

The single most important thing I’ve learned about business resilience is the importance of perspective: learning quickly from mistakes, staying grounded in what matters, and viewing setbacks as opportunities. When things go south, you have to be ready to pivot to make it better: It sounds obvious, but it can be highly challenging to execute in the moment.

For me, over the past 17 years of running Catalyst Advisors, that perspective has been shaped (sometimes the hard way) in three main areas that I’ve found are so critical to the smooth functioning of a company: talent, culture, and strategic agility.