Planning in the Face of Uncertainty
Last night, I had a bad dream. Not as terrible as a nightmare, but definitely bad. In the dream, I had arrived at a full, dark auditorium to give a TED-talk like presentation. I began to review my PowerPoint and felt happy that I’d included pictures of my kids. Then, someone handed me the event program. My blood ran cold when I realized they had changed the theme of the evening. My entire presentation had nothing to do with what the members of the room had come to hear. Terrified, I began to scribble notes in the margin of my notepad about how to deliver a different message with the materials I had in front of me. Happily, I woke up (full of this blog post) to my husband putting a steaming cup of coffee on my nightstand and dropping a kiss on my forehead.
That dream was about a pretty bad scenario - maybe not the worst case, but pretty awful nonetheless. And it reminded me of a tool Gladiator has been using since I attended the 2017 SSIR Nonprofit Management Institute (my FAVE annual conference). In our VUCA world, Gladiator has sought to partner with clients to imagine what’s possible and to create a flexible work plan that can shift with our ever-changing environment. When we use “Scenario Planning”, leaders and organizations can create multiple “right next steps”. We have found this tool so incredibly useful that it has become an integral part of our planning processes.
Scenario Planning: A few things you need to know
“Scenarios are stories about the ways the world might turn out tomorrow…. That can help us recognize and adapt to the changing aspects of our current environment”.
- Peter Schwartz, Futurist + SVP of Strategic Planning, Salesforce
Considering scenarios is not “predicting the future.” It is an opportunity to imagine alternative realities and create strategies based on varying conditions. As one of Gladiator’s core values is Imagination. We find this helpful because it allows us, in partnership with our clients, to identify risk, enable clarity in decision-making, promote timely innovation, and react quickly to our uncertain landscape.
To dip your toes in Scenario Planning, you and your organization must identify “Critical Uncertainties”. A critical uncertainty is an issue, a force, or a trend that we cannot accurately predict or control and is deemed important in shaping and influencing the future in powerful ways. This worksheet is a helpful tool to start a conversation with your team. Once you have completed this document, it is important to keep it at the heart of leadership team meetings. This document should evolve as conditions inevitably do also.
In this unprecedented time, Gladiator is working with our partners and colleagues to embrace an abundance mindset. There is quite a bit to be scared about and yet, we have seen amazing responses to the effects of this pandemic from our community. Change is always daunting when it doesn’t feel like our choice. I encourage you to look around you; in the midst of uncertainty, I have been inspired by the rise of new leadership, anchorage of radical collaborations and strangers’ accountability to one another’s needs. Our choice is to lean into that goodness.