16 Strategies to Prepare for Anything—1-5

Here Is What You Should Do!

It is difficult to foresee the future. So how is one to prepare? You can't prepare for EVERYTHING—there is not time enough or resources. An insightful approach some leaders have found useful is to prepare for ANYTHING. This requires more thinking and far fewer resources. It is based on the concept that there are some things you can do now which will prepare you for a very broad range of possible futures.

The real challenge is having the courage and discipline to begin eating well and exercising regularly before the heart attack.

I Stay In Touch With Reality—Identify assumptions

Most plans because the planners did not take the full reality into account. This may happen when you build a plan based on one or two critical assumptions. If the underlying truths of your assumptions change, you need to change the plan. Have your senior executives identify the assumptions which drive your business model, strategic plan, and current budget.

Set up permanent responsibilities for individuals to collect data to monitor these assumptions. Religiously review this data quarterly; look for trends. But research shows that such review and analysis systems are rarely well implemented. Why? Few of us like to challenge the assumptions we've made. We are much better at denial. This is where a smart, tough outside facilitator earns their pay.

Steps for monitoring your assumptions:

1. Get input from strategic thinkers who know your business:

2. What assumptions, if changed, in the world we operate, would impact our museum negatively?

3. Collect and sort the assumptions into a critical few.

4. Get input to weight the size and scale of the potential business impact.

5. Get input on how likely the change will be in the next five years.

6. If you've identified the critical assumptions, post them in the strategic thinking room. Figure out how to monitor them and report every four months.

7. If you have not identified critical assumptions, watch out, they are coming from behind you!

II Create "What If" Scenarios

'What if' income dropped by 30%? How would it impact us? How could we respond? A 'what if' scenario is more than a casual discussion; it's part of building of a real plan. When I was leading mountaineering expeditions in Alaska and Peru, we did not just talk about what we'd do if there was a crises (for instance very bad weather), we practiced it. As a result when a ten day once-in-a-century storm hit us high on Mount McKinley's South Face in 1968, everyone on our twelve man expedition walked away alive while another expedition on the other side of the mountain lost eight climbers.

III Build Versatility In Staff

Take full advantage of the benefits of cross functional team work to develop new knowledge and skills in all employees. The person who can do three different jobs is more valuable to the organization and to themselves. When everyone can do more jobs the peaks and valleys of work loads can be smoothed out. This can reduce the number of employees needed and get the work done better.

IV Build Your Adaptability Quotient

As the world changes, so must your business model. A business model is like an equation. It must be balanced. In other words when one factor in the external equation changes a complimentary change is required on the inside, for the equation to remain balanced. An unbalanced business model means you require more (energy, money, time or resources than the external world is willing to pay you, or donate to you if you're a nonprofit). Thus you move into deficit. A positively balanced model means you move into growth mode where the external world delivers more resources than you need now.

What is your model? (See the first discipline in Peter Senge's The Fifth Discipline for help.) Is it balanced? What are the levers to use in re balancing it?

V Build Your Innovation Quotient

A "what if" scenario might identify "What if the cost of gas reduces the number of school bus trips to museums?" Well, within six months, you might design programs your staff can take out to schools at much less gas cost. This builds innovation, adaptability and versatility-valuable in their own right. Drive innovation at all times. It is often the first to go in a crunch. Qm² has developed a tool to measure how well your organization learns as part of its Intellectual Equity program.