Wild card readiness matrix makes organizations better prepared for events like coronavirus
We are currently living a special time. Coronavirus is affecting people’s health and it’s also having huge consequences to businesses and economies. It has affected to the behavior of masses: people are not travelling anymore, they are hoarding food and toilet paper, school are closed, and remote working and education is preferred. Coronavirus is specially affecting the life of small entrepreneurs like me, who’s main income comes from key-note speeches. Cancelled events means no work, which means no income.
Futurists call rapid events that have huge consequences wild cards. The faster the event happens, more the surprise it is, which means that it is more difficult to anticipate it. Earthquake can destroy a block of a city in minutes. Corona pandemic has happened in months, so in this case one could say that we have had more than enough time to be prepared. Still I call the corona pandemic a wild card as the consequences to our lives are huge. However, if pandemic is a total surprise for an organization, it is because of lack of anticipation methos or ability to read weak or strong signals.
Wild cards are difficult to anticipate in advance. However, it is possible to be prepared for them in advance. In my book Foresight and Innovation- How are companies coping with the future I presented a model for organizations for being prepared for wild cards. I call it wild card readiness process. The idea behind the process is that we cannot know what wild card will hit us. That is why approach the challenge from different angle: What are the key resources of the organizations and how could we keep them safe from wild cards. The model helps to create a wild card proof organization
Wild card readiness process:
1. Define the important resources for your organization that it could not function anymore (for example: the employees, electricity, ict, customers, suppliers, office building, reputation, demand)
2. Consider various risks connected to the resources
3. Consider concrete actions that your organization could take to avoid the risks to happen or actions, that would decrease the effects of the risks.
4. Consider the influence and the possibility of various risks (the most influential and the most possible risks are the first one to consider)
5. Consider that kind of weak signals you could foresee about forthcoming wild card. Make a weak signal monitoring system to your organization.
The above mentioned issues can be listed to the wild card readiness matrix, developed by me.
The matrix is following:
In the book that was mentioned, I went througha case of ice cream kiosk entrepreneur preparing for the wild cards with this method. The wild card readiness matrix for this entrepreneur could look like the following:
A wild card like coronavirus is naturally a crisis to many organizations. However, because I am quite positive person, I tend to think that every cloud has a silver lining. Sometimes you just have to draw it there by yourself.
This kind of time of business slow down is a good time for organizations to focus on something that they have not had time before. Now it could be a good time to make your organization wild card proof for the next unexpectable event.
Are you interested about my ideas? If so, you could book my webinar lectures and key-note speeches via my web page www.elinahiltunen.com
