The Significance of Preparing a Backup Strategy for Excessive Success
It's an intriguing challenge – achieving more, swifter, superior than anticipated. Yet, excessive success too soon can lead to numerous unanticipated issues. This is the reason why it's essential to have backup plans for unforeseen disadvantages and advantages alike.
Many successful organizations create strategic and tactical plans to steer their objectives in the long and short term. The expectation is that individuals will think rationally, keep their promises, accomplish their commitments, and attain their objectives and aims.
The most successful organizations appreciate the importance of adaptability, modifying strategies according to evolving circumstances to attain their objectives. Ideally, these organizations will have considered potential alterations in their customers, partners, rivals, or situations and prepared contingency plans to adapt more effortlessly to those changes.
When things go awry, individuals perform gap analyses. They evaluate what was anticipated, what actually transpired, and then devise strategies to redistribute resources to close those gaps.
Addressing upside gaps is more challenging.
The catalyst for this specific article was the astounding, unexpected fall of Assad in Syria. The rebels have been battling the government for over a decade. Then, after Assad's main supporters, Russia and Iran, redirected their attention to Ukraine and Israel, the rebels' latest offensive toppled Assad in eleven days. The rebel leaders appear to be in a pickle, unsure of what to do next. It's a complex and critical situation. Although I won't attempt to propose a solution for them, it did prompt thoughts about helping others who inexplicably find themselves achieving goals they never thought possible.
Consider Scholastic Publishing and Harry Potter. Scholastic's initial print run of the first Harry Potter book in the United States was 50,000 copies. However, it sold 11.5 million copies in its first 10 days. This necessitated a complete overhaul of Scholastic's printing and manufacturing, distribution and logistics, retail partnerships, and marketing and promotion. They made the adjustments and have enjoyed 25 years of success.
Basic Strategy
At its most fundamental, enclose every plan with a contingency plan for underperformance AND one for overperformance.
- Consider the implications of potential changes in customers, collaborators, competitors, and conditions.
- Contemplate the impact of those on your operations, finance, and organization.
- Contemplate contingency plans to manage those impacts.
Negative Risks
The negative risks include:
- Customers purchasing less than anticipated.
- Collaborators delivering less than anticipated.
- Competitors outperforming you.
- Conditions altering adversely.
When those occur, you'll need to be prepared to:
- Reduce your operational scale in accordance with decreased volumes and revenue.
- Manage your cash flow in light of reduced revenue.
- Reorganize your organization.
Positive Risks
The primary focus of this article is the risks of overachieving. These come from things like:
- Customers purchasing more than anticipated.
- Collaborators delivering more than anticipated.
- Competitors underperforming you.
When those occur, you'll need to be prepared to:
- Extend your operational scale to handle increased volumes.
- Manage your cash flow in light of increased revenue. This is a significant risk. Rapidly growing organizations frequently find themselves in need of substantial cash as their working inventory expands.
- Reorganize your organization.
Mindset Shift
The crucial message is not the specific risks, implications, and actions. The crucial message is about the mindset shift. The probability of your precisely anticipating the things that will go wrong or right is minuscule. However, training yourself and your team to think through the possibilities will make you significantly better equipped to respond to whatever surprises do arise – positive and negative.
Everyone anticipates 2025 to be filled with numerous rapid changes. None of us know just what will change. And we don't know the implications of those changes. Shame on us if we're not prepared to adapt.
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- In the context of achieving success swiftly, it's crucial for organizations to engage in risk management, including contingency planning for both potential underperformance and overperformance.
- The Syrian conflict, with Assad stepping down after Russia and Iran shifted their focus, serves as an example of an unforeseen advantage that necessitated contingency planning and adaptability.
- In the case of Harry Potter's unexpected success, Scholastic Publishing had to implement contingency planning and adapt their operations, finance, organization, and partnerships to manage the upside risks effectively.
- Effective risk management involves considering the implications of potential changes in customers, collaborators, competitors, and conditions, and preparing contingency plans to manage their impact, whether positive or negative.
- While it's challenging to anticipate and prepare for positive risks like overachievement, it's crucial to have contingency plans in place to extend operational scale, manage cash flow, and reorganize the organization as necessary.
