In Business Continuity or Business Resiliency there is a common practice of ‘exercising the plan’s’. Typically, this is a scheduled or maybe even a last minute event, but the intent is to exercise a plan or series of plans — contingencies mapped out as an anticipated response to a set of unknowns and practice the best effort to respond during a crisis while trying to have as little negative impact as possible on the business and its customers.
We all work off plans in our everyday lives, both privately and professionally. We expect our plan to be executed based on our anticipated day to day activities. We go to work, we do our job, we come home. We get married, we have a family, we buy a car a house; we pay our bills, we purchase groceries, watch television, look at our phones, etc. We get very comfortable in expecting things to always go as expected, with little regard for the unknown. We rarely believe that anything even remotely close to a true crisis will affect us. Well, it can.
I’ve always considered myself a pretty flexible person throughout my life, but I had a pretty concrete personal plan. For the most part I expected my life to go a certain way. I did all those things I just described and I pretty much expected things to continue to go that way. One day, a little over 8 years ago I went to work, went about my day, and at 3pm I was asked to come to the meeting room near my office. I went to the room and was met by two colleagues and a police officer who proceeded to break the news to me that my husband of almost 20 years had died in a construction accident. It was a Monday and his first day on the job. The ultimate unthinkable unknown had happened and it was definitely not part of my plan.
This is a pretty difficult example of how plans can change, crisis can strike. But the good news is people are resilient. I am not the only person to have experienced a crisis nor will I be the last. Crisis can strike at some time in our personal and professional lives. Fortunately, the fact that we are now near the end of the 1st month of the 2nd year of a global pandemic many of us having had to adjust to completely different work styles, teaching our children and learning how to get groceries delivered all show that we can be resilient if we need to. During my personal example I had a rough go of it for quite some time after that tragedy struck. I went through all of the panic, grief, and loneliness that one does when they experience a tragedy, but I came to a point where I said to myself “I am not going to let this thing that happened define me, or the rest of my life”, and I chose to be resilient. I modified my plan, and I moved forward with calculated steps to remediate my situation.
In business, you should make the effort to exercise your contingency plans BEFORE the tragedy strikes. Work through the absolute least likely events and find more unknowns. Use more or multiple scenarios and update your expected responses. Can’t have your business open?… Is the website up to date? How’s it working? Your power is out?… Does the staff know how to process transactions? Your POS service provider is experiencing a DDoS attack?… How does your customer make a purchase from you? Do you have a backup credit card provider?
2020 has also given me the opportunity to use my contingency plan for employment and business. I was given an opportunity to choose self employment for the 2nd time in my life. It brings me great joy working for myself and looking for businesses that I can help either get started or be more effective or be resilient in this ever changing landscape. I am looking at 2021 with any of its perceived challenges as a long list of opportunities that I fully intend to embrace. I hope you can too.
If you are interested in taking a look at your businesses resiliency capabilities, contact Erin Quast at info@questjourneysolutions.com to schedule a consultation today.