SHARED RESOURCES - ANTICIPATION
Anticipation in your personal life can be simply a positive or negative emotion.
Anticipation in your business life can make the difference between being prepared . . . or not.
The goal for your organization is to use anticipation as a management tool for prediction and preparation. Anticipatory management works best when you realize every organization faces issues.
Let's define issues. Take some from the headlines. The economy is doing well or it's not. There is a growing public interest in a safer environment, forthright organizational leadership, more efficient and functional products and a more secure social security program. Take some from your organization's consumer or employee newsletter. Your sales are up or they are down. Your services are seen as a requirement for successful clients or they're not hitting the mark.
Issues are a constant factor in any industry. Some are part of a larger social context; others are more directly related to your every day business activities. When you anticipate these issues and project how they may affect your organization, you can be better prepared to manage the issues.
Anticipation of an issue before it becomes a crisis can make or break your organization.
You don't have to be a slave to the issues. With a commitment to the process of anticipatory management, your organization can be prepared for emerging issues, even become a respected leader by taking early, appropriate and decisive actions at the forefront of an issue.
Why does my organization need to be concerned about anticipatory management?
Anticipatory management goes beyond traditional issues management. Issues management is often reactionary. Missing are the advantages of predicting a rising issue and managing the issue to more satisfactory outcomes. Anticipatory management uses tested mechanisms for predicting issues and managing better outcomes.
Like most valuable business functions, anticipatory management involves commitment from an organization's leadership and a process. A rudimentary process includes:
- Identifying current issues and the impact on an organization
- Looking forward to (anticipating) new issues on the horizon
- Defining the issue's impact on the organization
- Identifying the various stakeholders affected
- Determining how best an issue can be managed (a structured component with its own importance and process)
- Deciding who within our organization will manage the issue
- Determining the longevity of an issue and the need for on-going management
- Evaluating the long-term impact of the outcome on the organization
What role does communications play in managing the issue?
Effective communicators are constantly employing anticipatory research, "out-of-the-box" thinking and applying strategy. They serve as the conscious for your organizational thus providing the unbiased counsel needed for decision making. Effective communicators have the practiced skills and access to information to implement the anticipatory management process.
Consider communications as an action item and the role it plays informing employees, customers or, if necessary, critics. Communications becomes the channel to direct-ing action on the part of employees, gaining their endorsement and, ultimately, affecting the customer.
Make a commitment to looking into the crystal ball of anticipatory management and your organization will perform better.
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