Leave the External Environment Where It Belongs…Outside

All the focus on the uproarious nature of the external environment brings that chaos to the hallways of the company. Chasing down the latest trends, or worse, trying to predict what’s around the corner is a quixotic effort that leads to exhaustion, undue consternation and futility.?

The external environment is dynamic by nature

The world in which we live, and do business in, is relentlessly unpredictable and the ebbs and flows, albeit violent at times, have been a constant, for time and memorial. Every generation has had its share of fights with the economic conditions of their day.?

Think back of the stories our grandparents shared, the common theme for most of them was that of risk, struggle and tectonic level shifts that were taking place in the world around them. Those shifts were not expected and could therefore not be planned for. Instead, they had to be navigated bringing in to bear every fiber of resilience, confidence and resourcefulness they had. The results were that they came out of those unplanned shifts changed, but unscathed. The changing and often difficult circumstances they endured forged their character, making them a stronger individual that, as a result, was able to live to tell the tale of their struggles to the next generation.??

Since the fluctuating nature of the ecosystem we live and breathe in is consistent, those dynamics need to simply be accounted for, not incessantly planned for.

We cannot predict the future?

It is virtually impossible to take actions today for what may transpire in the future. While the proliferation of advanced software algorithms that aim to predict future conditions and outcomes have added more data for us to swim through, they can never provide the certainty people look for when considering potential future events.?

Even the most successful stock market traders, whose job it is to predict the future, rarely beat the market on a consistent basis.?

Trying to evade every storm that surrounds the ship is exhausting and futile

Chasing down every permutation of how the future external environment might look like, leads to nothing more than chasing the wind. Moreover, planning for a moving target cannot be done because as soon as one future outcome has been provisioned for, the conditions that lead up to that outcome will have shifted. Engaging in this cycle leads to depleted resources and exhausts the energy of those involved in this type of planning.

To quote Prussian Field Marshall Helmuth von Moltke the Elder, “No plan of operations extends with any certainty beyond the first encounter with the main enemy forces.”

Instead of unremitting planning for what may or may not happen, senior leaders need to foster and institute systems and principles that will provide the means for the company to ride out the storms they will inevitably face and still arrive at the destination they had envisioned.??Just like the generations before us, these storms will change us.

Having worked in the Department of Defense (DoD) for a number of years, I was forced to weather the swings of budget pendulums that swung back and forth with every administration and economic condition.??Time and again, what brought our organizations through those dynamics were strong leadership, accountability, flexibility and a collaborative culture. It was these principles, not planning for the unpredictability of the future, that lead to success, regardless of the environment around us.?

Questions to Consider?

Are you planning for the future by developing your company’s leadership, accountability and resilience or are you looking outward, where none of your efforts can affect impending change that is just around the corner?

How has your organization weathered the storms its faced and how could those outcomes have been improved?

Do you have systems in place that create the wherewithal, grit and flexibility required to thrive during the explosive changes the economy is undergoing, or are you stuck planning??