Thriving in Uncertainty II - Key Questions that Require Brutally Honest Answers
Bringing a little method into the madness will give you confidence and the ability to make better decisions and spot opportunities
“When we think of our decisions as experiments, we remember that uncertainty is normal and surprises will always happen. From this perspective, there is no such thing as the right decision…”
Tania Luna and LeeAnn Renninger – Surprise: Embrace the Unpredictable and Engineer the Unexpected
Want to manage through uncertainty? With confidence and success?
Change your mindset.
Clarify your overall vision.
And know your financials and your operations inside out. Know every asset and resource, everything that is at your disposal. Especially the skills your teams possess, both collectively and individually.
Nothing will give you a better chance of being successful in uncertain times than having strong foundations, which means being very knowledgeable about your operations. OPERATIONS.
Yes, I said operations. That very boring thing that is not all rainbows and unicorns and purpose, but hard-core facts around what you can use and what you can lean on. Understanding the external shocks and market changes is critical, but not enough.
The first thing you need to do in uncertainty is ground yourself.
As we are talking business leadership, take in your macro environment and be brutally honest about the position of the business vis-à-vis competitors.
How do your competitors see you – and more importantly, how do customers see you? Are you a vitamin (nice to have to make me feel better) or a painkiller (I suffer without it)?
How’s the inside of your business? How exactly is that sausage made? Is it a mess? Are things running on autopilot? Is there a lot of slack in the processes? Have you even looked at your processes in a while? Do you have a COO or Ops Director/Manager who has seen difficult times before?
How are your people doing? Are they oblivious to what’s going on, just getting on with the day-to-day? Are they worried? Do you have internal ‘influencers’ with wide informal networks spreading panic?
How are your customer orders, stocks, and financials? How resilient are you to sudden shocks? How’s your FD doing? Is s/he sleeping at night?
Have you, as a leader, been through difficult times in business before? How about your top team? Do you have experience dealing with shocks within the top team? If some of the top team went through, e.g. the Great Recession in an industry that was impacted, that’s a big plus. That was a great shock to the system, and those who have managed through it have learnt a lot (not to mention having built resilience).
How are your suppliers doing? Are they impacted? Will they be impacted? Are you dependent on any one particular supplier? This year in particular, pay attention to geopolitical shocks. Price increases or product changes expected from suppliers?
Others are facing uncertainty too. Where are the opportunities? To acquire new skills, provide new services, get new