When asked if he was concerned about an opponent’s fight plan, Mike Tyson famously said “Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth.”
The pandemic keeps landing haymakers. Things are normalizing and then…. BLAM! Delta. The vaccine comes out and we’re on the right track until….THUD! Global supply chain chaos. Holiday travel gets back to pre-pandemic levels…. POW! Omicron (that impact is still TBD, but it is dominating the headlines this morning).
It can make you wonder if it makes sense to have a plan at all. In a world where we have no idea what tomorrow will bring, are we better off just staying nimble and reacting to what takes place?
My answer to that question is no. It is always better to be proactive than reactive. Control what you can control, dictate the terms of your business and your career, set the direction (if not the course) for your future….and be ready to react and adjust when things change.
Good businesses and strong leaders seem to be able to see around corners and make the right decisions at the right time. The truth is, they probably made a strategic decision early on, and then planned for the likelihood that they would be wrong. They created a Vision for what they wanted their future to look like, built a Plan to achieve it, and set up some contingencies for the potential issues that could arise. In building the Plan– the numbers that mattered, the resources they would need, the knowledge they had to obtain– they also identified the constraints that would hold them back. They expected problems, they imagined what those problems might be, and they devised ways to minimize their impact or avoid them altogether.
Identifying the potential constraints is, in my opinion, the most important part of building a plan. Things will go wrong. Market conditions will change, economic forces will shift, your competitors and your customers will evolve. A crucial task in creating your Plan is to identify what those shifts might be, and how they’ll affect your business or career. What is happening in the market that could affect your plan? What are your competitors doing better than you are? What is your biggest opportunity for improvement? What do your clients really want from you? Is your current product/service the best thing you have to offer? What is the biggest threat to your success, and how do you need to improve to withstand it? The answers will identify the constraints. Once you know them, you can deal with them, allowing your course to change while keeping you pointed in the right direction and on track to reach your Goals.
As we close in on the end of 2021 and you build your plan for 2022, expect it to go well and have contingencies in place for when something (inevitably) goes wrong. Another pandemic haymaker is coming. The key to withstanding it is to get your gloves up or duck out of the way, then throw your own counterpunch. Set your goals, build your plan, get those feet moving….and keep swinging.
This blog is provided by: Adam Thompson, Coach and Chief Accountability Officer, FocalPoint Business Coaching
