We all know the importance and value of planning for worst case scenarios. Backup and redundancy plans are critical for business success in difficult and unexpected times.
But in a recent conversation with a friend, he said, “we often don’t prepare for the BEST-case scenario.”
What a valuable and true observation! So, how do we prepare for BEST case? Some thoughts…
Prepare Excess Capacity
If every resource is always committed to or above its maximum, it’s difficult to take advantage of unexpected positive opportunities. While we probably don’t want our people, equipment, or money sitting around doing nothing for part of the day, building in a little excess capacity to allow for unexpected opportunities allows luck to favor the prepared.
Keep Your Options Open
Backup and “what if?” plans are great, but how many positive versions do you have? Remember the old driver’s ed/defensive driving tip: always have an escape route? There’s a positive version of this, too. Always have a pivot strategy for if things go better than expected. It’s a simple extra step to build into the vision and goal planning process. A simple question to drive this: what would wild success look like? How would you handle that? By the way, that makes for great motivation to actually achieve wild success, too!
Always Have Growth Goals Ready
In the planning process, most businesses always set some growth goals or targets. A key to capitalizing on unexpected success is knowing when to accelerate those growth goals and when to wait. Just because you are more successful than anticipated doesn’t mean you need to do anything else about it (see below). But, it may mean you need to move faster to even bigger goals.
For example, if things go better than expected, what additional resources would you acquire? What new people needs would you have, and could you meet them quickly to keep up with your success? How would you communicate differently, and about what and to whom?
Enjoy
Maybe the most difficult thing to do when things go better than planned is to simply sit back and reap the rewards of good hard work, maybe a little luck, and success. Yes, it’s good to prepare well for when things DON’T go as planned in the future, but if you don’t go crazy, it’s only fair that you enjoy better-than-expected successes. Give yourself that permission…when you do, you may find that you start to attract more unexpected successes.
So, as you plan and prepare in your business, continue to think about escape routes and pivot strategies if things go awry, but start to think about how you would respond if things are better than expected. Several of my clients had their best years in their history in 2020. Their ability to pivot, based on our work together, and capitalize on unexpected opportunities and successes created snowball effects that led to more unexpected opportunities and successes. That’s the value of preparing for the BEST case.
Need to prepare for success? We can help.
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