Like you I am a product of my experiences along with input from colleagues I respect.
Thirty years ago a now retired bankcard manager who became a close friend shared, “the only constant in bankcard today is change”. Entering the new year of 2011 his statement is ever more factual.
Like a breeze across a Kansas wheat field, today’s difficulty is the constant ebb and flow and instability with legislators, rule making bodies and even the card associations themselves and every aspect of our economy.
How does one manage and grow a business during extreme uncertainty?
Contingency planning is the answer.
Even in uncertainty, there is a degree of certainty; the economy is not gong to improve any time soon. Business like life is about cause and effect, action versus reaction, decisions and the consequences of those decisions.
Assemble your key managers and staff, particularly line people and sales people that demonstrate vision and strategic thinking. Then play out various what if scenarios. Have everyone interject his or her own scenarios, the direr, the better.
By the mere fact that you have undertaken this exercise, whether or not notes are taken or documented plans result, your company and its people are better prepared than 95% of your competitors. You, your company and your people with act appropriately versus react inappropriately when uncertainties become certainties.
Another colleague shared a business philosophy that I embrace and have endeavored to instill in every person at CardWare. He said, “Always make a decision, take positive action, for no decision is a decision of the worst kind. Do the right thing that is best for the customer with the least damage to your company and its partners”.
I am amazed and constantly disappointed by individuals I meet who are charged with making decisions, have the responsibility with commensurate authority, and yet unable and unwilling to fulfill the responsibilities by saying yes or for that matter, no.
In 2011 assess the various uncertainties and their outcomes so that you are prepared to make decisions with positive action and outcomes when the uncertainty becomes a certainty. Say yes. Say no. Saying let me think it over or some variation is no decision . . . of the worst kind.
