Coronavirus Planning: Try this Technique to Make Clearer Decisions

In November 2008, the U.S. National Intelligence Council issued the fourth edition of its future-looking report, called Global Trends 2025: A Transformed World. 

Amazingly, one of the report’s scenarios forecasted coronavirus.

It says: “The emergence of a novel, highly transmissible, and virulent human respiratory illness for which there are no adequate countermeasures could initiate a global pandemic.”

It goes on to suggest that the pandemic would likely originate in a location with “high population density and close association between humans and animals, such as many areas of China and Southeast Asia.”

You can download the report and read more on page 75 (page 95 of the PDF).

The importance of peering into the future to see what uncertainty is ahead is a critical skill for all leaders today. It should also be a mandatory exercise for strategy development. 

While this is true, let’s stay in the here and now.

Today, one future came to be. We cannot rewind time. But the worst-case scenario of this version of the future has not yet happened. So let’s see what we can do.

First, I want you to gather your staff and board for an illuminating exercise.

Work in teams of two to three or up to five people and brainstorm five ways COVID-19 could have an impact on your organization, your staff, your customers, and significant public projects, events, or initiatives in the next six months. This analysis is called First-Order Impact.

Now let’s go to Second-Order Impact. For each of the five you identified above, brainstorm five more ways lives may feel an impact.

Click here for an example (PDF) I developed for you. 

You can continue to Third Order Impact if you like, but with these two levels of detail, you start to see patterns emerge. Your mind opens up. Creativity flows. You see wider, deeper, and farther into the future.

Best of all, you can make bolder decisions because you’re ready for uncertainties.

Please share this information with other leaders you know wrestling with big decisions right now in the face of COVID-19. 

These are highly unusual times and in the spirit of generosity, if you’ve got a about an event, sponsorship, communications, or revenue challenges you’re facing, please email me at Gail @ GailBower.com. I will be happy to talk over your challenge.

Till then, stay calm, wash your hands, don’t touch your face, and stock up on chocolate!

P.S. Let me know what you came up with on your First and Second Orders of Impact.