When I was a broke student and single mum, I remember doing countless household budgets to try and keep on top of things. I’d put the ideal budget together, and then think “well, it won’t work this week, because the car registration is due, but next week, this will be the ideal budget…”
Next week never comes, though, does it?
No plan survives first contact with the enemy. If it's not a pandemic or a recession, it's something else. Natural disasters, weather, regulatory changes, restructures, political scandal, community change… see what I mean?
The ticket is knowing that while it’s perfectly acceptable, desirable and unavoidable to go off-plan, we must stay on strategy.
The big picture you’re aiming for, the priorities you’ve set, and the way you want to work with people need to guide your change response, not be put aside.
If you’ve set a priority for high-performance culture, community resilience, or making internal operations easier, this is the time those priorities are being tested.
Rather than seeing your strategy as an extra thing you don’t have time for now, it should be the lens you use to filter your decision-making.
Ask yourself how you can respond to this latest disaster in a way that reflects your priorities and gets you closer to your long-term vision.
Even better: how does this represent an opportunity to prove your dedication to your why?
Til next week,
A