Preparing for the Upturn: Part III

The second implication for business leaders is planning. Vision helps stay focused on the big picture, so we don’t miss the woods for the trees. Planning ensures that the vision is articulated and the organization works towards achieving the vision.

Vision, by definition, is warm and fuzzy. It lacks structure, but provides purpose. It is all too easy to get lost in the swamplands of the downturn. Planning helps the organization to stay on track.

And this process begins during the downturn, concomitant with the vision.

Based on the vision, a long term plan needs to be drawn up. This plan should reflect not just short term measures to negotiate the downturn, but also long term strategies to capitalize on the recovery. And the short term measures should be evaluated in the perspective of the long term strategies. Each measure should be judged by the value it adds or subtracts from the achievement of the long term strategies. This ensures that short-sighted measures that dilute the resources of the firm are not chosen over actions that will silently reinforce the ability of the firm to accelerate its growth when the upturn begins.

Some of these short term measures that add value to the long term strategies have been discussed in earlier posts, and juxtaposed against those measures that detract from the firm’s long term abilities and resources.

I can hear howls of protest from certain quarters when I speak of long term strategies during a downturn.

The volatility and uncertainty engendered by the current global recession has given rise to a short term mindset.

Where is the ability, you may ask, to forecast sufficiently accurately in the long term, when short term visibility is low? To use the analogy of the ship again, this is like steering a ship through a dense fog, aiming for land thousands of miles away, when you cannot see three feet ahead in the mist.

There is certainly logic in this suggestion. But there is also a solution. And I will explore that solution in my next post.