PLAN AHEAD FOR UNCANNY, RARE
AND UNEXPECTED BLACK SWAN EVENTS!
In life and business, uncanny, rare and unexpected situations are called “black swan events.” Author Nicholas Taleb introduced black swan events in his book, The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable (Penguin, 2008). In the book, he describes the profound impact of black swan events, which are often devastating to businesses, markets, investments and the overall economy.
The black swan event is a metaphor for surprise events that negatively impact life and business. Because they are ambiguous anomalies, people are often oblivious to them, dismissing the probability that these outliers could devastate and disrupt their lives. Taleb describes this phenomenon as “collective blindness,” and consequently, this is precisely what makes these outliers rather dicey.
There have been many black swan events, including World War 1, the September 11 attacks, the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing, and other events such as droughts, floods, tornados and the recent coronavirus pandemic. Certainly, the coronavirus pandemic was a freak black swan occurrence that no one anticipated. It had a profound effect on business operations across the globe. How do we manage these unpredictable black swan events, and how do we recover from them? PLAN AHEAD FOR UNCANNY, RARE AND UNEXPECTED BLACK SWAN EVENTS!
By their very nature, black swan events are spontaneous, so you can’t prepare for them. However, your company can have upper management implement protocols that can help navigate these outliers.
A crisis communication plan is a highly regarded tool for businesses. Through these plans, certain behaviors are practiced in expectation of those black swan events that suddenly emerge, creating an emergency. How will your employees respond? How will they tactfully interact with members of the media? A crisis communication plan clarifies who the leaders are who are responsible for following through on protocols that your employees have rehearsed in advance.
You may doubt that you can plan for black swan events because of their unpredictability. However, through vigilance and being open to happenstance, your crisis communication plan sets up contingencies for fluke events that can affect your company’s operations. Why wait? Contact Savvy Swan Communication and Marketing to prepare a crisis communication plan that plots out potential black swan events and helps you to circumvent a disruption to business.
HOW WILL YOU PREPARE FOR BLACK SWAN EVENTS?
Prepare your company’s SWOT analysis. SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats) analysis is a framework that highlights your company’s competitive position helps you devise a strategic plan. SWOT analysis assesses internal and external factors, as well as current and future potential of your company. Focus intently on your company’s weaknesses and any threats to your business operations. List potential disruptors with the worst ones at the top, followed by those of lesser significance. Create “what-if” scenarios and use available strategic planning business tools that help look into the future.
The best tools for scenario planning include a SWOT analysis and Porter’s Five Forces of Competitive Position Analysis, for which you can find free templates by signing up for an account here. I created a SWOT analysis from scratch by building a simple square with four quadrants in my earlier blog here: SWOT Analysis . There is a wide variety of free templates available through the organization SCORE, https://www.score.org/, which I highly recommend. SCORE’s professional mentors can also help you with your small business startup, and the organization has hundreds of online skills workshops, where you can learn about risk management and forecasting to quell possible disruptions to your operations.
Looking at the SWOT analysis from the abovementioned blog, I selected financial risk, IT cyberattacks and supply chain disruption from the threats quadrant as being terribly disruptive to my business operations and came up with a few tactics to mitigate them. All the tactics below would require a crisis communication plan so that employees know exactly what to do in response to a black swan event. PLAN AHEAD FOR UNCANNY, RARE AND UNEXPECTED BLACK SWAN EVENTS!
Here are some tactics to prepare for Black Swan Events and avoid business risk
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- Supply Chain Interruption
Create a crisis communication plan that includes on-call standby suppliers.
Develop and increase partnerships with logistics companies.
Reinforce the supply base.
Stockpile inventory. - IT Phishing or Cyberattack
Develop a crisis communication plan as part of your organization’s strategic response to IT security.
Join forces with competitors that act as proxies in the event of a cyberattack.
Educate your employees on how to recognize phishing emails.
Organize simulation training to protect your company’s security.
Implement regular presentations, quizzes and lessons to keep your company’s IT security in check. -
Financial Risk
Develop a crisis communication plan to reduce uncertainty.Manage complex business processes with dependable IT infrastructure.
Stagger company investments over a long period.Diversify investments and have an exit strategy.
Buy insurance.
Build multiple revenue sources.
Develop good leadership.
- Supply Chain Interruption
One of the valuable lessons we’ve learned during the coronavirus pandemic is that supply and demand for products and services flatlined for most businesses globally. In hindsight, this information taught us that generic pre-planning for most of our company functions (in the short term) is highly appropriate and smart. It’s more important to be proactive than it is to be caught flatfooted without a plan; what’s more, being without a plan is irresponsible. PLAN AHEAD FOR UNCANNY.
Even though company leaders set the strategic direction of the company, your employees have to execute the plan. There may be deep financial, strategic and ethical issues at hand, most of which can be mitigated as long as your employees accept the fact that black swans are swimming in the darkness along with the white ones. Certainly, your employees can’t prepare for every scenario. PLAN AHEAD FOR UNCANNY
However, they can provide a reasonable response to a black swan event by using the tools of strategic planning, accepting that there are catastrophic outliers present that can be dangerous to business, and rehearsing for worst-case scenarios.
Savvy Swan Communication and Marketing prepares crisis communication plans for companies of all sizes. Is your company ready for an emergency? If not today, then when? Focus on the risks right now—don’t wait!
By Patti Kondel, CEO, Savvy Swan Communication and Marketing, MBA from the University of Massachusetts, Lowell, and MA from Emerson College, Boston. Patti is a business and marketing specialist, brand booster, lover of the arts, yoga practitioner, content creator, and cookie connoisseur—the sweet variety—and for marketing consumption, Internet cookies too! Let me help you trumpet your business to the world! Contact me today!
Savvy Swan Communication and Marketing is available for business opportunities around the globe. We also welcome related news, contributing article submissions, and helpful blog tip posts from our kindred community. If interested in submitting compatible content, please email info@savvyswan.com.