If you’ve been following my blog, you may be wondering why I talk about looking back and then looking forward, both short term and long term. Trust me when I say, there’s a method to all this.
Simply put, the past guides us to the future. In the future, there’s tomorrow, literally, and then tomorrow, a year or two from now.
Short-term strategies are critical during a crisis which includes a period of uncertainty, unpredictability, dependence on outside factors, adjustment, and transition. You want to make sure that the short-term decisions you make will take you toward your long-term vision, or at least not block you from getting there.
You’ll need to devise a series of triggers and actions. You can’t totally predict the future, but as with all good business systems, you can track metrics that inform your choices.
Develop a set of triggers that tell you when to take certain actions. A trigger can be a date, a metric, or some external event. For each trigger, you’ll develop a course of action. These are typically decisions you are making ahead of time, such as hiring (or firing), spending (more or less), production levels, delivery options, etc.
The idea is that ahead of time, you have a proactive plan so that you can make decisions based on metrics/facts and not emotions.
In Part SIX, I’ll explain more about developing triggers and possible actions.
Stay well!
Stephen
Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay
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