All Things Inspired

Strategic planning to compensate for disruptions will be your key to success!

We know that disruptions are inevitable and will come your way soon enough. Having identified your strengths to take on the disruptions of life, hopefully you will choose to fight rather than take flight. If this is the case, strategic planning to compensate for the disruptions will be your key to success.

Strategic planning involves defining a distinct vision for you to create various scenarios that will allow you to overcome any disruptions. Once you have thoroughly examined all scenarios you can determine which option best addresses your ability to circumvent the disruption and stay on course to achieving your goal. Further plan for disruption by...

Assessing the urgency - for example, technology tends to be one of the greatest sources of disruption in our world today. This can be internet outages, obsolete technologies, and systematic failures. How do these types of disruptions impact your productivity? What is the urgency for resolution?
Pinpoint solution opportunities - you know the disruption is coming. As you learn what the source of the disruption is, what can you immediately identify as opportunities that you can address and overcome the disruption with solutions that will make an impact? This should spur you to rethink what your options are to improve the situation.
Prepare through communication - using the scenario of dealing with a customer, what will your message be to your contacts? How do you go about presenting viable solutions to overcome the potential disruption? Having contacts at various levels will help you accomplish two things. First, you'll be better prepared to know and understand their position and how each would be affected. And second, you will be better prepared to promote a culture of teamwork in compensating for the disruption.
Create a plan - anticipate several possible disruptions and be prepared to compensate for each. Everyone involved needs to clearly understand the compensatory options and have buy-in on the plan. You must be adaptable though, as not all components of your compensation plan may offer a desired solution or be accepted by those affected by the potential disruption.
SWOT analysis - strategically planning for disruptions should include the technique of analyzing Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats of any given situation that could be derailed by some type of disruption. This technique will help you better prepare for facing the disruption head-on.

We can say it a hundred times. Disruptions will come! What have we learned so far about disruptions and what is important during disruptive times? Is it stability? Survival? The important thing is mitigating the effects of disruptions without displacing you from your path of success or growth.

Maintaining momentum through disruptive times is the key element of continued growth. Stability is conquered through maintaining momentum. Security is achieved through having a plan to compensate for disruptions. And as Charles Darwin would say concerning survival, "It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent that survives. It is the one that is most adaptable to change." To help you maintain momentum through disruptive times, ask yourself the following questions:

Do I have a clear vision and a complimentary strategy to guide me through the disruptions that I am likely to face?
What can I do to stimulate habits of creativity or innovation, that will allow for effective change?
Am I adaptable or am I rigid in my operating techniques? Am I open to new ideas and willing to challenge my traditional ways of thinking?
Can I include the advice of others into my thinking?
If I am willing to compensate and make changes in my plan, can I effectively communicate that to those who will be affected by disruption?

When disruptions and the ensuing chaos associated with them occur, it would be easy for you to find somewhere or someone to place the blame on. I've done so in the past, but then I realized that the truth is placing blame is just a lazy way of trying to make sense of chaos. However, if we understand that disruption and chaos will always be a part of navigating life, we can manage the challenges that come with it and succeed. Disruptions and crisis are never convenient and certainly never fun. So, consider the following five ways to keep your sanity and momentum in the middle of disruptive times...

Eliminate what hasn't worked in the past - most likely you've been here before, right smack dab in the middle of a disruptive situation. Reflect on how you handled it before and avoid repeating what did not work for you.
Control the controllable - we covered it many times, but you must give your attention to what you can control. Trying to change something that you cannot control is just wasting valuable time and adding to your frustration.
Cultivate consistency - keeping a rhythmic pattern of the habits you execute will help you drive momentum. Winston Churchill once said, "Never let a good crisis go to waste." What he meant by that statement was that you have the chance to turn any disruption into an opportunity. An opportunity for change; an opportunity for growth; an opportunity to instill confidence in others.
Creatively compensate - we asked the question earlier, what can you do to stimulate habits of creativity or innovation that will allow you to effectively change?
Refocus your efforts - observing everything around you at these times, drawing on your known strengths, you can now take the knowledge you've gained combined with your strengths and begin to refocus your efforts on the disruption ahead of you.

You now have the tools to understand how to compensate for disruptions and focus on the possibilities for success, rather than on the potential for failure. Adversity has a tendency to introduce us to our real selves. Through these circumstances we can make better decisions based on our experience. Mark Twain said, "Good decisions come from experience. Experience comes from making bad decisions." Remember, disruptions are coming. Start now to anticipate what could possibly happen and begin to put together a plan of compensation and you'll be able to weather any storm that comes your way!

Be inspired! Inspire others!