There’s plenty of commentary on how to tread water during times of uncertainty or change. (In fact, we just devoted three blog posts to this very topic!) But what if things at your organization are . . . kind of okay? Or, despite a challenging environment, you still want to seize the future? It’s all about looking forward: how to plan for the future.
In this final installment of our four-part series on navigating uncertainty, we’ll look at ways you and your organization can position yourselves for future success even when things seem tough.
If you’re not quite sure how to proceed, you’re probably in good company. While advice on making do during uncertainty abounds, guidance on how to plan for the future has, in our experience, been covered a lot less.
How to Plan for the Future: Top 4 Tips
This situation calls for a certain set of skills and no small amount of finesse. So if you find yourself in a position to look ahead, even in the midst of an unpredictable moment, here are four tips to help you get started.
1. Become Ambidextrous
If you’ve ever tried to switch-hit in baseball, you know how hard it can be. This kind of coordination isn’t a whole lot easier in business. But if your organization is up to the challenge, you’ll be in a strong position to reach your goals even if storm clouds gather over your industry or the larger economy.
Uncertain Futures Yield New Business Opportunities
In their landmark 2004 article for the Harvard Business Review, professors Charles A. O’Reilly III and Michael L. Tushman introduced the idea of the “ambidextrous organization,” their term for companies successfully “exploiting the present and exploring the future.” This approach requires companies to operate on two distinct but interdependent tracks (and timelines).
According to O’Reilly and Tushman, leaders of ambidextrous organizations “separate their new, exploratory units from their traditional, exploitative ones, allowing for different processes, structures, and cultures; at the same time, they maintain tight links across units at the senior executive level.
In other words, “They manage organizational separation through a tightly integrated senior team.”
If you can swing it, an ambidextrous strategy offers a powerful appeal: the prospect of maximizing current opportunities while executing a bold plan for the future. During times of uncertainty or disruption, obviously many companies simply won’t have the ability to run trains on both tracks.
Be that as it may, maybe things aren’t so bad for you right now, despite recession worries and the conflicting economic signals that define the current moment. On the contrary, maybe you’re actively looking for ways to stay a step ahead. You’re setting goals.
If that’s your situation, an ambidextrous approach offers a great way to stay on course while keeping an eye on the long term.
Source: Pexels
A word of warning, though: it shouldn’t be attempted by the faint of heart. It requires firm coordination and a strong, hands-on management style (remember, however, that “strong” management does not mean micromanaging or disrespecting employees—two rookie-level mistakes).
Not only must managers be skilled at coordinating across departments, they must be able to do so while conveying a unified message through their words and actions. “A clear and compelling vision, relentlessly communicated by a company’s senior team, is crucial in building ambidextrous designs,” say O’Reilly and Tushman.
2. Protect Your Competitive Work
Maybe you’re not ready to commit to becoming ambidextrous. Or maybe you just don’t think your organization is well-coordinated enough to execute this strategy without getting overwhelmed, at least at the moment. That’s fine. Perhaps you’ll be in a better position down the road.
Whatever strategic choices you make, however, you should be sure that you vigilantly protect your most important work from disruption. This is a particularly significant issue when it’s time to reduce costs. Unfortunately, when push comes to shove, too many leaders naively try to make cost cutting “fair” and issue blanket reductions across the organization.
In reality, this is anything but fair since it presumes that all work and its resulting costs are “equal” (spoiler alert: they’re not).
To truly understand the value of activities you’re considering cutting, analyze your company’s work against your strategy by dividing it into three categories:
- Competitive work, usually around 15 to 20% of all activities, comprises the most strategically important work. Investing $1 in this work should yield a $5 return. It’s the work that directly delivers the value that distinguishes you from your competition.
- Enabling work, which accounts for another 15 to 20% of activity, is the work that directly supports competitive work. For example, if you rely on customer service to differentiate, customer analytics might be your enabling work.
- The remaining 60 to 70% of work is necessary work: It keeps you in compliance and keeps the lights on.
Competitive and enabling work should be organized for maximum effectiveness. This is where you invest disproportionately in talent and technology. Necessary work should be organized for maximum efficiency—done in parity with competitor companies for the lowest possible cost.
It’s in this last category where you should target your largest efforts to cut costs. When leaders mistakenly cut work from competitive and enabling categories, they unwittingly weaken the organization’s ability to grow when things turn around.
The same general principle applies when times are flush, too. If you find yourself in an unexpectedly strong position during a recession or some other external shock, it doesn’t make sense to throw a lot of extra money at necessary work. Boosting your competitive and enabling work is a far better strategy for guaranteeing a solid future and reaching your long-term goals.
“Expect change. Analyze the landscape. Take the opportunities. Stop being the chess piece; become the player. It’s your move.”
– Tony Robbins
3. Be Elastic
It’s probably obvious that the leaders that survive periods of uncertainty are flexible. But the same goes for leaders that thrive during these periods. Sustained organizational success comes more easily when leaders are good at reading and adapting to emerging circumstances.
In fact, as we work with leaders and organizations of all shapes and sizes, we notice that those leaders who are decidedly successful exhibit behavioral elasticity. They understand there is no one-size-fits-all set of behaviors for any given circumstance, and have prepared themselves by developing a broad arsenal of behaviors that can be deployed as needed.
When a big decision needs to be made right away, they don’t dither. But when time allows, they’re eager to contemplate the pros and cons of a thorny issue. Maybe they’re driven but laid-back, or authoritative but understanding. In other words, they embody a constructive paradox.
Leaders who embrace only one side of a paradox will consider the present traits to be contradictory or opposite. This means they may work continuously on a thorny problem, but in an incomplete way.
On the other hand, someone who is psychologically accepting of a paradox will consider the pair of traits to be mutually compatible. This kind of leader will exhibit a greater range of behaviors, resulting in a greater achievement, effectiveness, and sense of personal fulfillment. (For what it’s worth, the same principle applies to someone’s personal life.)
In fact, we are such big believers in the power of the paradox that in our Executive Development Intensives (EDI) practice, we have used the Harrison Assessment, a tool that assesses a person’s level of resiliency or behavioral elasticity on twelve key paradoxical behaviors.
Tip
If you decide to take a bold step forward during a period of uncertainty, it’s important to get others on board. This is especially true if part of your process involves creating an ambidextrous organization, which requires tight coordination and messaging among managers.
So don’t keep your plans to yourself, lest you risk disgruntling managers and employees—not exactly a situation you want before tackling a new opportunity.
4. Try Going On Offense for a Change
When things get tough, or seem like they’re going to be sometime in the near future, it’s all too easy to batten down the hatches. And if your competitors and industry peers are playing defense, it takes courage to buck the trend.
You may feel like your reputation is on the line—not to mention your job. Who needs a five-year plan for the future when everyone else can’t even come up with a one-year plan?
And yet. Just because the winds of uncertainty are swirling all around, it doesn’t automatically mean it’s time to go into survival mode. Perhaps you really do have the space to look forward. The million-dollar question is, if a big opportunity comes along, will you be ready to seize it?
For too many organizations, even ones in an unexpectedly strong position, the answer is no. With enough flexibility, relentless focus on your core strengths, and an ambidextrous approach, however, you may be well equipped to buck the trend. After all, sometimes the best defense is a good offense.
How to Plan for the Future? Start By Becoming a Strong Leader
When facing uncertain circumstances, both in the business and in their personal lives, your team relies on you to be a strong, communicative leader. You’re the one who has the vision to see them through these troubled waters.
And while you may have the best intentions as a leader, you may need your own leadership skills sounding board. That’s where we help.
As leadership consultants, we’ve worked with over 50 CEOS, providing advice based on real-world, established experience. Help your team weather the storm of uncertainty. Become the leader they deserve.
Contact us today to start your leadership transformation.