If the last few years have taught us anything, it’s that disruption is inevitable.
Scenario-based planning can help you plan by considering different circumstances and preparing now to help mitigate the impact of a disruption to operations, company reputation, and overall business goals. Thinking through alternative views of the future and making plans to address possible scenarios can help ensure that the measures taken during a disruption serve long-term goals and strategies rather than setting your organization back.
Here are five ways to prepare to meet the challenges of the next disruption:
1. Brainstorm Scenarios
Engage a team to make a list of driving forces that could impact your business. These driving forces usually fall into one of six categories:
- Political
- Economic
- Societal
- Technological
- Legal
- Environmental
This list could be endless, so try to limit the scenarios to plausible forces. Start with some of the following questions:
- What disruptions have other organizations in our industry experienced? Could those happen to us?
- What disruptions have organizations in our geography experienced?
- Are there legal or economic factors on the horizon that may impact how we do business in the near future? What about the long term?
Remember that even optimistic scenarios can influence what initiatives you undertake to future-proof the organization. For example, rapid growth may require upgrades to systems sooner than expected, or a technology breakthrough could mean shifting priorities to get a new product to market before the competition.
2. Triage Your Technology
One highly vulnerable area for many organizations is technology. Not only can external forces cause interruptions (major Internet outages or malicious actors, for example), but when technology becomes outdated, it may be especially vulnerable to crashes that bring operations to a halt. In addition, innovations regularly disrupt the market in ways that may require rapid adoption or pivot to something new.
Organizations should look at each technology system and ask:
- What if this system goes down? What would the impact be on our business?
- Is this system likely to fail? What could make this system fail, and how can we improve it to meet that potential demand?
- What investment would be necessary to upgrade this system?
Leaders should also take the time to familiarize themselves with the basics of each mission-critical system. When leaders have at least a rudimentary knowledge of critical technologies, they will better understand why those systems are crucial and more effectively prioritize upgrades.
3. Plan Your Messaging
Of course, even if technology is all upgraded, emergencies can still cause disruptions. Employees, customers, and the public at large will expect responses from organizations impacted by the emergencies. While it may be tough to predict actual emergencies, you can still compile lists of emergency resources and create public-facing messages.
Leaders in every organization should have access to the following:
- Generic messages that can be customized for the most likely emergencies (law enforcement events, weather or natural events, other possible emergencies)?
- What community services can we access and recommend to employees and customers in the event of an emergency (hospitals, clinics, shelters, mental health facilities, food banks)?
- Are there local disaster relief groups we can coordinate with to provide services to the community? How can we partner with those groups?
Write out these messages ahead of time so that in an emergency, you can quickly access answers to the questions people will be asking. Planning your messaging can be key to managing your reputation through disruption.
4. Prepare Your People
You can have the latest technology and the best messaging. However, if your leaders and team members don’t know how to respond to a disruption, the organization will still be unprepared for the challenge. Organizations should run through disruption scenarios at least twice per year; once per quarter is even better.
Ask yourself the following:
- What weather or natural events are most likely to occur in this area?
- Are we at risk of public safety emergencies? These can run the gamut of police emergencies, fires, automobile accidents on the premises, and broken sewer lines.
- What procedures do we have in place to deal with emergencies? How often do we review these with employees?
- Who are our designated leaders for emergencies (these won’t necessarily be your business leaders)?
The more you review and play out scenarios with your team, the more quickly and competently you will be able to respond to any emergency—even one you haven’t specified in your scenario planning.
5. Foster a Team-Oriented Culture
Whatever the future holds, your organization will struggle to meet the challenges if you lack a cohesive culture. A culture of teamwork is just as important to address the challenges presented by positive disruption as those resulting from negative disruptions.
As leaders, continually ask yourselves:
- Do we have a strong culture of high-performing teams?
- Do we have a culture united in purpose across the company?
- Can we have honest conversations about issues impacting our long-term strategies and goals?
Whether your scenario planning emphasizes responding to emergencies or implementing growth strategies, building a strong, team-oriented culture will help your organization respond to any disruption.
Change can come from any direction at any time, and no one can predict with perfect accuracy what the next disruption will be. By taking the time to plan for future possibilities, you can give your organization a better chance of meeting whatever challenge comes next.
SELF CHECK:
- Does our organization have a business continuity plan in place for common disruptions?
- What is one scenario we have not planned for? Can we meet the demands of that challenge?
- What is one way we can better communicate with our customers in the event of a disruption?
