Prepare For Every Possible Outcome If You Want To Win

If there’s one thing we’ve learned from Nostradamus it’s that no one can predict the future. No one. We look at all the trend data, listen to all the analysts, and road map till our fingers hurt, but our beliefs about the future are educated guesses at best.

I’ve never focused on guessing the future. However, what I have always focused on are outcomes. I really only have two talents:

1. I can consume more information, in real time, and be able to start applying the information I’ve absorbed faster that most people. There’s a lot of people that can consume a great deal of information, but they often lack the ability to start applying it in real time.
2. I can map out all the possible scenarios of a situation very quickly. I’m always contemplating the “what if” scenarios and how I’d handle those situations. I want to be prepared so that I don’t have to take a breath when presented with a curve ball. In effect, the curve ball becomes no different than the fast ball – because I’m ready for it.

Let’s focus on #2 for a second. A colleague of mine shared this great article from Fast Company titled “Futures Thinking: The Basics.” It’s a great article that’s “the first in an occasional series about the tools and methods for thinking about the future in a structured, useful way.” The whole article is a great read, but what struck me the most was this passage at the end:

Trying to figure out “the” future is always a mistake; it’s much more productive to think about an array of possible outcomes. Remember that the futures you come up with will almost certainly be wrong–the goal is to be wrong in a way that offers insights into present choices.

One technique that’s good to start with is to use what some professionals call “futures archetypes”–generic headlines that offer platforms upon which to build more specific stories. Four that can be very easy to use are expectations:

• The future is what I expect.
• The future is better than I expect.
• The future is worse than I expect.
• The future is weirder than I expect.

The first three are fairly self-explanatory, but the last may be a surprise. The goal with the fourth archetype is to explore possibilities that completely shake things up (a big earthquake, perhaps, or a war, or a revolution in computing power). This doesn’t mean fantasy–alien invasions and robot uprisings are probably best left to the movies–but it does mean something outside of your expectations. The phrase I love to use for this is “plausibly surreal.”

It was pretty cool to see someone else with a similar mindset as me. The author, Jamais Cascio, does a much better job than I could of applying the concept to the real business world. But, the key takeaway is be prepared for what could happen so that if and when it does happen, you know exactly what to do.

With a major focus on short term goals. You know, things like quarterly sales figures or the end of the month speeding ticket quota. We keep such a fine tuned focus on the here, now, and immediate needs that we lose site of the larger picture. By, taking our eye off the bigger picture we make decisions that are overly reactionary and designed to address a short term challenge. When we make that decision, at the time it looks like the right one, but often fixing the short term situation takes us completely off course and away from the big picture…the big goal.

We’ve seen this happen quite often haven’t we? We saw it happen with Facebook when they decided to try and mimic a lot of the functionality twitter was offering. That’s just one example, but we see it happen in other industries like the auto, telecom, and personal electronics. Companies like Palm, Microsoft, Sony, and General Motors often make very short term reactionary decisions based on the competition. We’ve seen this implode and set a company back years. Why did they make these decisions? Simple, it’s clear they hadn’t thought out the multitude of potential decisions they’d have to grapple with. In short, they weren’t prepared.

Perhaps General George S. Patton, said it best…well said it best twice, when he stated:

“Prepare for the unknown by studying how others in the past have coped with the unforeseeable and the unpredictable.”

and

“I always believe in being prepared, even when I’m dressed in white tie and tails.”

You can’t predict the future and you can’t create the future. But, you can be prepared to handle what the future may bring. That’s the stuff of leaders and that’s the stuff of great companies.