“Think of being intuitive, innovative, and inspiring as guiding principles.”

In this week’s Whatif? Wednesday Thought Letter: let’s consider the US election results and what’s next.

Are you ready for what comes next post-election?

The recent US election results will significantly impact industry sectors and organizations—although more for some than others. As leaders, our role in preparing for the eventualities that may come our way in the post-election period is crucial. Our stakeholders—investors, customers, people, suppliers, and communities—will look to us for answers—and answers we must have.

So, how do we go about clearly developing these answers? For many organizations, the answer is to put together a working group, task force, or committee to study the challenge and provide recommendations to the C-suite or board. For example, I talked with a few CXOs who wanted to stand up task forces to consider AI’s implications on their business when ChatGPT came out. They were concerned with AI’s potential impact on customers, labor, and culture. While sensible, this approach strikes as reactionary.

What if we systematized our approach to externalities so we could be more anticipatory and responsive? Could we inspire confidence in our stakeholders and the market? Think of being intuitive, innovative, and inspiring as guiding principles. How might you engage with your and other teams to make this happen? In other words, what would have to be true? The answers lie in unlocking better leaders, teams, and execution.

Consider employing the following proactive strategies to take control of external forces, such as the Presidential election and its range of implications, with the potential to steer towards positive outcomes.

1. Build Scenarios. What’s the worst, best, and most likely case for your sector and business? In addition to black swans and gray rhinos, consider golden phoenixes (serendipitous and highly favorable) in your assessment.
2. Construct stakeholder personas. Identify each stakeholder group’s concerns, possible pain points, and anticipated needs. What chokepoints must be resolved to address them?
3. Scan market response. How are leading organizations in other sectors responding? What are your competitors doing? What are they getting right, missing, and where might they fail?
4. Create three options. Use what-if storming sessions to develop three potential solutions for each problem, one of which should be bold and audacious.
5. Have an 80/20 mindset. Ruthlessly apply the 80/20: invest your effort, energy, and resources into those few initiatives that will drive the best outcomes.
6. Forward-leading, not lagging metrics. How will you know you’re being successful? Develop future-based KPIs that serve as indicators of how stakeholders are responding to your actions.

The larger the organization, the more resources available to employ these strategies. That said, it takes much work to make the elephant dance. For smaller organizations, it’s easier to pull essential people together, but they may lack the resources to organize and facilitate leadership gatherings.

As leaders, we are much like our prehistoric ancestors. They scanned the horizon for potential threats and opportunities, brought the tribe together to decide how to respond, and acted—often with life-or-death consequences. In today’s volatile business environment, we must ask, metaphorically, will this situation eat us, or can we eat it?