There is an old saying: “Don’t look back; something might be gaining on you.” However, that might not be good advice in a highly competitive and dynamic world. Let’s look at some recent situations. The Golden State Warriors had the best-ever regular season record in basketball this past season, but due to an untimely injury to the league’s most valuable player (two years in a row) in the playoffs, the Warriors lost the final game of the championship. Ordinarily a great team might say just wait till next year, and it’s highly unlikely there will be another fluke injury to their superstar Steph Curry. Instead, the Warriors went out and signed the 2014 most valuable player, Kevin Durant, who is as good as or perhaps even better than Curry. This is the epitome of never being complacent and now they are odds-on favorite to win this year’s championship.
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So what are you or your company doing to follow this same trajectory in upping your game? Are you setting more aggressive targets for this year, no matter how well you just did? Do you make excuses for failure, instead of owning up to it? Have you looked where unforeseen events tripped you up and put into place an insurance policy to cover such events? Do you encourage others to give you bad news, or do you have a culture of looking at the world through rose-colored glasses?
For corporations, are you being proactive in the following areas: Evaluating your staff to see where you need redundancy for key employees if someone leaves? Similarly, do you have both a RIF plan as well as retention devices for critical staff? Do you have a game plan identifying specific prospects to be added to replace key clients you may possibly lose? Have you created a profit plan including contingencies that you will effectuate as needed? It is indeed surprising how many small to mid-sized companies do not incorporate the above into their thinking before we incorporate this into their DNA.
