Speaker 1: Helping leaders motivate their people to a higher level of
Speaker 1: performance through strong human relations, team building, and golajiving. This
Speaker 1: is the seven Minute Leadership Podcast with your host Paul Fellovledo.
Speaker 2: Hello everyone, and welcome to the seven Minute Leadership Podcast.
Speaker 2: It's episode six point thirty three. I want to ask
Speaker 2: you another question. If your top performer quit tomorrow, what
Speaker 2: would you do? If your biggest client pulled their contract?
Speaker 2: What would you do? If you're building flooded, your server crashed,
Speaker 2: your board turned on you, or your name showed up
Speaker 2: in a headline that you didn't ask for. What would
Speaker 2: you do? Most leaders do not think about these questions
Speaker 2: until they are living inside them, and by then it's
Speaker 2: too late to prepare. Today, we're talking about scenario planning
Speaker 2: for the unexpected, not paranoia and not doom scrolling, not
Speaker 2: living in fear. We're talking about disciplined preparation. And I'll
Speaker 2: start with another aviation story. We train for engine failures
Speaker 2: before we ever lose one. As a pilot, I have
Speaker 2: practiced engine out procedures dozens of times. Power to idle,
Speaker 2: pitch for best glide, find a landing spot, run the checklist,
Speaker 2: declare the emergency you do not rise to the occasion.
Speaker 2: In a crisis, you fall back on your training and
Speaker 2: leadership works the same way. Most organizations operate in what
Speaker 2: I call blue sky mode. Revenue is steady, staffing is stable,
Speaker 2: customers are predictable. You feel like you're cruising at five
Speaker 2: thousand feet on a clear day, and then density altitude hits,
Speaker 2: and then weather rolls in, and then in engine coughs,
Speaker 2: and if you have never walked through that scenario before,
Speaker 2: you're now building the parachute on the way down. Scenario
Speaker 2: planning is not about predicting the future. It is about
Speaker 2: rehearsing your response. Here's how you do it. First, identify
Speaker 2: your most dangerous assumptions. What are you assuming will always
Speaker 2: be there? Your top three employees, your largest contract, your
Speaker 2: current funding stream, your reputation, your health, your access to credit,
Speaker 2: your supply chain. Write them down. Now ask the uncomfortable question,
Speaker 2: what if that disappears? Second, run a tabletop exercise. Gather
Speaker 2: your leadership team, close the laptops, put the phone downs,
Speaker 2: Throw a scenario on the table. Your IT system is
Speaker 2: down for seventy two hours. Your organization loses twenty percent
Speaker 2: of its workforce in a month, a law suit hits
Speaker 2: your inbox, your key vendor goes bankrupt. Do not debate
Speaker 2: whether it is likely. Walk through what you would do
Speaker 2: in the first hour, the first day, the first week.
Speaker 2: Who speaks publicly, Who makes financial decisions, Who stabilizes staff morale,
Speaker 2: Who owns the communication if nobody knows you've just found
Speaker 2: a vulnerability. Third, build trigger points. In red key leadership,
Speaker 2: there are moments where the stakes change, routine decisions become
Speaker 2: high consequence decisions. That is a red key moment. Scenario
Speaker 2: planning helps you define those trigger points in advance. For example,
Speaker 2: if revenue drops by ten percent for two consecutive months,
Speaker 2: what happens? Hiring freeze, expense review, emergency board meeting? If
Speaker 2: employee turnover hits a certain threshold? What happens? Do you
Speaker 2: do still? Interviews, retention bonuses, culture audit. When you pre
Speaker 2: define the trigger, you remove emotion from the decision. You're
Speaker 2: not reacting, You're executing. Fourth, document your response playbooks, not
Speaker 2: a two hundred page binder that nobody reads. One page
Speaker 2: response outlines, crisis communication flows, succession plan for key roles,
Speaker 2: cash preservation, strategy, media holding statements, staff reassurance talking points,
Speaker 2: Clarity beats complexity every time. Fifth stress test your ego.
Speaker 2: This one is personal. Scenario planning forces you to confront
Speaker 2: something most leaders avoid. You are not invincible. Your title
Speaker 2: does not protect you. Your past success does not immunize you.
Speaker 2: The market does not care about your history. The storm
Speaker 2: does not check your resume. I've been on FEMA deployments
Speaker 2: where entire communities thought the disaster would hit somewhere else.
Speaker 2: I've been on EMS calls where families believed emergencies happen
Speaker 2: to other people. Denial is not a strategy. Preparedness is. Now.
Speaker 2: Let me shift this from organizational to personal. What is
Speaker 2: your personal scenario plan? If you lost your job tomorrow?
Speaker 2: What would you do in the first twenty four hours?
Speaker 2: If your health forced you to step away for six months,
Speaker 2: who is trained to take your seat? If your reputation
Speaker 2: took a hit, do you have enough trust in the
Speaker 2: bank to survive it. Leadership is not only about protecting
Speaker 2: the organization. It is about protecting your ability to lead.
Speaker 2: And here's the truth. Calm leaders are not born calm.
Speaker 2: They have rehearsed. Confident leaders are not guessing. They have
Speaker 2: thought through all of the angles. Resilient organizations are not lucky.
Speaker 2: They have done the work when things were quiet. The
Speaker 2: best time to run a fire drill is when there
Speaker 2: is no smoke. The best time to talk about succession
Speaker 2: is when everyone is healthy. The best time to discuss
Speaker 2: financial resilience is when revenue is strong. Scenario planning is
Speaker 2: seven intentional minutes a day of asking what if, what
Speaker 2: if this goes wrong? What if this doubles in size?
Speaker 2: What if this disappears, and then writing down your answers.
Speaker 2: Because when the unexpected becomes reality, you will not have
Speaker 2: the luxury of slow thinking. You will need clarity, You
Speaker 2: will need decisiveness, You will need composure. That composure comes
Speaker 2: from preparation. So let me leave you with a challenge
Speaker 2: this week. Sit down with your team and run one
Speaker 2: uncomfortable scenario. Don't overcomplicate it, Just pay one and walk
Speaker 2: through it. Document it, assign ownership. You'll walk out of
Speaker 2: that room stronger then you walked in, not because disaster
Speaker 2: is coming, but because discipline is now present. So leadership
Speaker 2: is not about hoping that the sky stays blue. It's
Speaker 2: about knowing exactly what you will do when it turns gray.
Speaker 2: Spend seven minutes today preparing for something that you pray
Speaker 2: never happens to you or your organization. That quiet preparation
Speaker 2: may be the reason your organization survives its next storm.
Speaker 2: If you want more free leadership resources, head over to
Speaker 2: Paul Falavalito dot com and click on free Stuff. I
Speaker 2: have over twenty five free leadership documents you can download
Speaker 2: and start using today. This has been the seven minute
Speaker 2: Leadership podcast, and I thank you for listening.
Speaker 1: For more Paul fell of Alito podcasts, visit paulfellowalito dot
Speaker 1: com