Anticipate The Unexpected
Sometimes when you stop and look around the world you will notice things that you simply did not expect to see. What is it that American news stations focus upon? In addition to tragedy, our news folks are excellent at covering the unexpected. Think for a moment about some of the largest news stories over the past few months:
- An explosion that leaves workers dead and that has poured 2.5 million gallons of oil daily into the world’s ocean waters for 36 days (as of today)
- Cars that seemingly have a mind of their own and accelerate uncontrollably leading to human injury and death
- A truck accident that spills 17 million bees into the air requiring firemen to douse the cloud of insects with a fire hose
Designing, developing, and implementing your business upon a solid systemic foundation is a start. However, regardless of how well you plan and operate your business to those systems there will undoubtedly be things that you simply do not expect.
By anticipating the unexpected, we can move events or situations from what would have been unexpected to the expected (and normal realm). This is what has me puzzled with the situation in the Gulf of Mexico. Is it really possible that a large oil company never anticipated that rupture of an oil line at the ocean floor? Or did they anticipate this very scenario but the fix is being held up by a larger system, i.e. the political system?
I don’t have the answer. Yet this is a great lesson for all of us to stop, think and try to anticipate the unexpected in our businesses and lives.
One comment
Dr. Bradley W. Semp
Dr. Brad helps businesses to Design for Action! Click here to learn more.
This is another way of saying Risk Analysis. I learned from our Strategic Planning class that it’s essential to identify risks, the probability of those risks occuring, and the impact those risks would have if they do occur.