Evolve U

Success…With A Chance of Failure

2nd October, 2009 - Posted by Shaunice Hawkins - No Comments

If you’ve ever spent time gardening, then you know it takes weeks, if not months of significant preparation to produce a beautiful, healthy garden. 

You decide what to plant, what fertilizer to mix in the soil and which organic pesticide to use well in advance of planting season.  You chat up “neighborhood experts” for their garden secrets, visit websites for tips and tricks, stake out your local nursery for the best buys and consult books like The Old Farmer’s Almanac to benchmark your progress throughout the season.  You labor day and sometimes night to make every considerable effort to maintain the health and beauty of your garden.  That garden is your pride and joy.  Everyone who knows you knows it.   

But, what if all of your effort and hard work didn’t prove as successful as in the past?  What if you started out with a healthy, beautiful garden but miscalculated the effects of the sun, weather, pests or weeds and the garden died prematurely? What then? We tend to put such tremendous effort into preparing for success that we often fail to prepare for unexpected.  We are so optimistic, so forward thinking, so success-driven on whatever we set out to accomplish that we only foresee positive outcome – nothing else.  We only plan to win.

I am not, by any means, knocking the influence of positive thinking nor am I challenging the power of faith.  I believe firmly and unequivocally in both.  I am merely stating that not all fairy tales end happily, not all days are sunny, and not all efforts result in success.  Just like we are conditioned to prepare for the weatherman’s prediction of “a chance of rain” by carrying an umbrella, we need to prepare for life’s prediction of “a chance of failure” by preparing a contingency plan.

We can all agree that “failure” is damaging. The very thought of it illicits strong emotional, psychological and physiological response in anyone acquainted with it.  However, if we prepare a strategic course of action that can be implemented when failure attempts to thwart our plans, then we can counter failure, buffer its damaging effects and broaden our options for success.  

Most often we choose linear travel to journey down the “The Road to Success”.  Because the intended plan to succeed has no allowance for detours and/or off-road travel, unexpected road blocks or road closures result in only one course of action: a 180 degree rotation to reverse the direction of travel or, in  laymen’s terms, a U-Turn.  In this example, the U-Turn leads to “The Road to Failure”, taking us further and further away from our intended goal.

Contingency plans (also known as “Plan B,” “back-up plans” and “worst-case scenario plans”) allow for multi-directional travel.  Unlike in the aforementioned example,  “The Road to Success” has a few exits along the way.  These exits allow for continued travel without making any U-Turns.  If there is a road block or road closure ahead, an upcoming exit leading to a parallel route allows for detours without taking us off course or returning us to the starting point.   Contingency plans ensure that travel continues forward toward “SUCCESS” rather than backward toward “FAILURE”. 

When creating your personal contingency plan, you’ll need to incorporate the following elements:  

Purpose: Indicate in clear but fully descriptive terms what the contingency plan addresses. It should include the steps that should be taken in the event of the loss of a particular resource or service.

Desired Outcomes: Determine desired outcomes in terms of output and level of service. Specify the maximum amount of time you intend to operate under contingency.

Resource Requirements: Describe the estimated time, budget and, if applicable, source of  primary and secondary funding required to implement the plan.

Reasons for Failure: To decide how long a disruption will last and help to determine the extent of said disruption, identify possible reasons for past failure and assess risks of future failure.  Describe both at length and explain how either would impact the business.

Potential Impact: Outline the anticipated impact on you, your business and/or client base while operating under contingency.

Warning indicators:  Notate warning indicators or signs of failure.

Areas Affected: List all areas that may be affected by the potential impact.

Trigger Response & Plan Implementation: Give emphasis to the specific failure that will trigger implementation of the plan. Include various scenarios that could lead to a trigger event. Also, describe the basic criteria for implementing the plan. Determine which trigger event will  prompt the decision to implement contingency.

Recovery:  Describe requirements for discontinuing contingency and returning to normal operations (i.e. conditions, events or procedures). 

Remember, if you fail to plan, you plan to fail.  You may not achieve success at the time you wish to achieve it but at least it is still attainable…on your terms.

 

FINAL THOUGHT
The road to success is wherever people need another road.  ~ Robert Brault