Surprises in business rarely bring good news.

And if you’re blindsided, it’s hard not to fall into a fear loop.

Along with the financial impacts, the emotional and physical toll on you and your team can be significant.

With stress hormones (adrenaline and cortisol) flooding your body, developing a strategy to counter their effects is key.

How do you avoid this trauma?

Quoting the boy scouts’ motto – ‘Be Prepared’ and start visualizing some potential disasters.

Although it may sound counter-intuitive (to most of the business and leadership experts extolling the virtues of goal setting) planning for ‘doomsday’ helps.

The key is to start this planning now, before you’re surprised.

Start identifying the possible (and probable) events that can occur that would derail your project, initiative, or quarter.

Prior to March 2020, very few companies listed a global pandemic as a potential threat to their business.

The organizations that asked the following questions in 2019 were better prepared:

• What would happen if my suppliers could not ship materials to me in time?
• What would happen if practically overnight, my entire workforce had to work remotely?
• What would happen if there was a labour shortage, and I could not fill the positions required to deliver key projects?

In retrospect, answering these questions may not appear that formidable as we’ve learned to contend with these issues over the past 3 years.

How would you answer the questions below?

• What if the demand for our products/services dropped by 25% in a single quarter?
• How would my team deal with a cyber security breach where all our customer data was exposed?
• How would my organization respond if our key competitor released a product with a longer list of features and a price set 20% lower than our offering?

Thinking about these scenarios can be stressful and unpleasant. However, developing contingency plans now before they land on your doorstep is critical to avoiding the trauma associated with surprises.

Remember it’s the punches you don’t see that knock you out.