Plan For The Unplanned

Wait, what? Plan for the unplanned? That doesn’t make sense. How do you plan for the stuff that’s not planned?

In short, you go deep and wide in what you want the plan and outcome to be, and you take one big step further in every other direction as you go through the planning process. You, as a leader, do this; because when it doesn’t go according to how you think it will go (or how you want it to), you’ve got some preparedness around it.

Great leaders do this. Great business leaders do this. Great ministry leaders do this.

What is so interesting about this principle is that I knew this so well from my military days; and yet I buffooned this several times when I arrived in the business world.

Here’s one story. It’s so cringy that I’m laughing out loud as I’m writing it.

I was working for a really big global company. I was a mid-level manager, and I was giving a big presentation to a group of nine corporate executives. I was going through a huge PowerPoint deck. I had studied the deck. I thought I knew it pretty well.

I’m in the boardroom, presenting, and I can immediately tell I’m not connecting with the people in the room. Instead of closing the laptop and stopping the PowerPoint (which is what I should’ve done), I leaned in even harder. I decide to go all in, stick to my slide deck, and go from slide to slide to slide. The reception in the room was ice cold. It was deafening.

Actually, it wasn’t deafening. I remember hearing some snide remarks under people’s breaths.

My business partner was in the room with me. She’s among the nicest people I have ever known and worked with. I haven’t talked to her for a long time, but I’m still pretty sure that she’s having an impact in the world to bring positivity and encouragement.  After the absolute implosion I caused, we left the boardroom, and she and I went down to the bottom floor. There was a coffee shop, and she said, “Let me buy you a chocolate muffin.” I said, “No, thank you, I am fine.” She gently retorted, “No, let me buy you a chocolate muffin.” What she was saying without saying was, ‘You need some dopamine…eat some chocolate, asap.’

I hadn't imploded back in the boardroom just minutes earlier because I didn’t present well. Well, that was part of it. But there was a bigger reason it was an implosion: I wasn’t presenting to them what they really needed or wanted. And yet, there is even a bigger reason – at the core – as to why it was an epic failure: I didn’t prepare to go any further beyond the one direction I thought it would go.

That’s it. Plain and simple. If I had researched the people in the room more, I would’ve been better prepared to go in different directions that I had not anticipated. The sad thing? It would’ve taken only a few phone calls or meetings with internal colleagues to find out more about the key stakeholders in the room – and to have a good idea (maybe a great idea) of what was really important to them. But I didn’t do any of that. Instead, I ran hard, with a few pieces of solid intelligence about two people in the room and what they wanted. But there were seven other people in the room. What did they want individually? What did the team want collectively? I had a plan for the two people, but not for the rest. I was ill-prepared, and it was one of the biggest bombs ever of my career.

Here’s a better story that’s not as cringy and leans into the principle of plan for the unplanned.

Years before, in the military, we were going across a border into enemy territory on a really big mission. I was leading the mission, so I gave the hours-long briefing beforehand. But the longest part of the briefing that I delivered to a lot of people in the room wasn’t about the main plan; rather, most of the briefing time was spent on all of the what-ifs. You heard that correctly; most of the information we discussed was all the contingencies we hoped wouldn’t happen. In other words, we planned on the unplanned.

Guess what happened? Several things went unplanned that night. But we had talked about it before we even walked out to the helicopters back at home base. We had already briefed the scary “what ifs” and were ready for it as we entered enemy territory.

We didn’t execute things perfectly, but we did execute things really well. Why? Because we were prepared for it. We were ready for a main plan, and we were ready for the nineteen other plans we were hoping didn’t happen.

I understand and appreciate the pushback – you can’t plan for everything. But you can plan for a lot. You can plan for a heck of a lot.

Most businesses don’t have a business plan. That’s right. Most businesses don’t. And a lot of companies survive without a business plan. Do you know why? Because those people are good people who are subject-matter experts, and they want to get things done. They perform, simply said, pretty darn good. But they could be so much better if they had a plan. They could be GREAT. They could be incredible if they have a good plan, not just of what they want to do but if they plan for the things that they don’t want to happen – but they do plan for them because they could happen.  

I have been so blessed to be surrounded by amazing leaders – in my military career, ministry career, and business career. I’m not sure why, because I don’t deserve it. But when I look across the spectrum of amazing leaders I’ve been blessed to be around, the best ones have a plan. I’m not saying there’s no value in throwing a Hail Mary, or two once in a while to just go for it. Of course, there’s some merit to that. But that is not a strategy for the long term. Eventually, and even more likely, the Hail Mary is going to get knocked down or intercepted. The best leaders have a plan and plan for the unplanned.