Self-Devpt. Nuggets™

What is your crisis management ability like or better still, how good are you at anticipating and avoiding/preventing crisis in your business operations(e.g. outage of essential manufacturing components which leads to lost output/sales)? How good are you at assessing trends of events, and quickly determining sources of potential problems?

This article explains why the good business practice of pro-actively developing alternative plans of action, to be implemented in the event of setbacks or crisis situations occurring, is an essential requirement for business longevity.

Do You Have Backup/Alternative Action Plans For When Your Business Suffers Unexpected Setbacks?

“One way to succeed is to work hard at not failing by always anticipating problems before they occur” – Peter Drucker

Certain successful entrepreneurs are reputed to be uncomfortable with “good times” i.e. when everything appears to be going “smoothly”. According to one book I have read, these individuals formed this habit as a result of past experiences, when such “good times” in their businesses were followed by a string of unexpected setbacks.

Their experiences apparently “trained them” to be sensitive to unseen but possibly impending problems or “danger”. During “good times” therefore, instead of relaxing and celebrating, they quickly develop/implement strategies aimed at addressing the problems they anticipate or fears they have.

Having Back Up Plans Can Help You Reduce Your Frequency Of Failure

Having back up plans will not guarantee you absence of failure. But it can ensure that you reduce the frequency of your failures, and/or don’t record avoidable failures. In addition, the back up plans will enable you bounce back quickly from your setbacks.

And that is of utmost importance. As most of us must have heard at one time or the other, it’s not falling down that matters. But being able to get up and keep going every time you fall down is what really matters. Backup plans will enable you do this much more easily, effectively and frequently.

Developing back up plans will help you prepare to deal with any suggestions of delays, disappointments or failures that might occur. It will make it easier for you to keep a positive outlook when things appear not to be going well – because you will be confident in the knowledge that you have an alternative plan(s) already in place.

How To Develop A Backup Plan

So how do you draw up your plan? Simple really. Just ask yourself questions. Imagine you are not you. (It’s easier than you think, I assure you). Just try and imagine that you’re one of those “nay-sayers” or unbelieving people who question your sanity, possibly because they do not understand your business idea.

Then proceed to generate the kinds of questions(or reasons/arguments) you think they would come up with, to prove that what you want to do cannot be done.

It might not be a bad idea to actually approach these individuals with the objective of deliberately getting them to discuss their thoughts about your ideas with you. Be smart about it. Make it look natural – start a conversation and gradually steer it to the subject you want them to comment upon.

Very often I have found people like this especially eager, and they relish the opportunity to tell you why they are right and you are wrong to try doing it the way you intend.

Never mind all that, just “record” all you can and then withdraw to generate action plans that will help you effectively ensure that those reasons they’ve given/questions they’ve raised, can be effectively addressed through the action plan you will develop.

Next, decide on the order in which you will implement items in the action plan you have come up with. Then commence doing so. As things progress, depending on your judgment of whether or not the plan you are working is doing well, you can then initiate implementation of other plans.

You will find that some of your plans will require you to seek assistance of certain individuals at short notice. If possible plan ahead and hint them that you might need them. Members of your mastermind alliance(especially those who do NOT take setbacks or problems too seriously) could prove useful in these circumstances.

How Having A Backup Plan Helped Me Win A Speaking Invitation

When I first started out in business in early 2002, I had just finished writing my latest management research paper titled “Self-Development As A Tool For Achieving Career Advancement(A Practical Guide Based On Experience)”. I recall vividly that after reading through my work on that paper, I repeatedly told my wife, brother, friends – and all who cared to listen – that I believed it was my best work so far. I also told them I was convinced I could win the next Nigerian Institute of Management’s (NIM’s) Young Manager’s competition (I had placed fifth in the National Finals on my debut in 1997).

So I began making enquiries about the competition, but was told the programme was not yet out. Something however began pushing me to make alternative plans to get my paper in front of the leaders of thought in management who I believed would be able to give me useful feedback.

One evening I sat down and began writing down the names of organisations/individuals who I felt would be able to give me authentic and useful criticisms. People like Dr. J. Y Maiyaki, Director General of Center for Management Development, and many others.

I prepared letters to each of these people, and hand delivered them with a copy of the neatly spiral bound paper to their offices. My objective was to use that paper to draw attention to myself with respect to my work on Self-Development Education. That was between January and late February 2002.

Some months later it became obvious that the NIM competition would not hold, so I was glad I had implemented my other plans. But not as glad as I was when in August 2002, I got a visit from the Training Manager of the Center for Management Development (CMD) who wanted to know if I could meet with them for a discussion, towards leading their September 2002 staff seminar by delivering my paper on Self-Development Education at their main auditorium.

After about 3 meetings, agreements on honorarium to be paid, event date and time, etc were reached, and on Wednesday 25th September 2002, I successfully delivered a one-hour talk to an audience of over 100 persons including directors and other staff, in the CMD’s main auditorium.

(Read my article titled “I Flopped Badly At The National Finals!(A True Story About How NOT To Prepare For/Deliver An Important Presentation)” to learn more how I used learnings from a botched presentation during the 1997 NIM national competition – that took place 5 years BEFORE – to successfully deliver my presentation at the CMD’s Staff Seminar in 2002 without a hitch, despite a potentially destabilizing power failure occurrence).

Summary

Aside from positive verbal and written feebdack(I got back over 80 of the speaker evaluation forms I circulated to the audience, with an average rating of 4 – on a scale of 1[poor] to 5[excellent]) the CMD also sent me a letter of apprecia

Did I achieve my objective of getting myself and my work noticed/acknowledged by leaders of thought in my niche or area? Yes I did. But I had to pro-actively develop(based on actively observing trends of events, and considering their possible implications) and implement an alternative plan in place of the one I had originally started out with. Be prepared to do that when(NOT if) the need arises.