I have often thought that sailing was a great metaphor for life and business.  There you are bobbing along gently with a light breeze when apparently out of nowhere comes a squall and you are fighting to keep control. Years ago, when my children were small, I had an experience of this and thought how relevant it was to what is happening today.

We were fighting our way through some fairly unpleasant weather with a crew of two adults and 3 young children all being sick.  We had reduced our sales to a small handkerchief and were struggling not to be driven into the army firing range marked on the chart. At this point a catamaran went past us with every sail straining and a man at the helm, standing tall and starting straight ahead.  We gazed in admiration.  When we finally got to harbour (with the instantly recovered sick children clamouring for pizza) we headed to the pub and bumped into the fearless skipper.  I told him how impressed we were – his response: “I was terrified, my crew were all below being sick, the boat was full of water, I couldn’t get the sails down, I didn’t know where I was, and I just had to hold the wheel and hope that we stayed upright”.

There are a lot of businesses in a situation like that today.  The current world situation is dark and getting darker. Sometimes you just have to hold the wheel and hope you stay upright. That may get you through if you are lucky. But there are better ways of facing the dark.  I list them in the order you should tackle them and I will write about them in future blogs:

1. Acknowledge the dark and its effects on yourself and those you work with. Then light some metaphorical candles to help you and those around you.
2. Do some serious scenario planning to get a realistic view of your potential futures
3. Realise that however bad the situation there may well be opportunities that you can take advantage of.

Pat Chapman-Pincher 

Pat is a senior leader who has spent most of her career running, founding and growing leading edge technology companies all around the world.   Pat now uses those business skills and experience as part of the team at www.defyexpectations.co.uk to help organisations accelerate their success by solving complex business issues in today’s turbulent world.