What’s coming at you?

Before I became a strategic planner, I launched a regional lifestyle magazine in a fast-growing suburban Chicago county. We had 26 investors, three-quarters of a million dollars raised, a staff of 12, and 25,000 monthly circulation. We had a plan, and we worked it hard.

Our revenue projections weren't wrong when we made them. Then, unexpectedly, the Chicago Tribune launched a zoned edition for our county, stripping away the lower-end advertising we were counting on. And a recession hit, sapping the higher-end advertising we expected to win.

Within months, rather than pour more money into the venture, we closed our doors.

The plan didn't fail

Looking back, I see it clearly. The plan didn't fail. Its premises did.

Every strategic plan rests on assumptions about the world outside your organization: what customers will want, what competitors will do, what the economy will allow. Most of those assumptions are never written down. They're simply taken for granted, until something changes.

My magazine is hardly the only example. Bigger companies and big-time startups get caught too.

•       Live Nation expected to build on a strong 2019 with continued double-digit growth in 2020. Then the pandemic shut down live events, and its second-quarter revenue fell 98%.

•       Fisker Automotive relied on a single battery supplier for its luxury plug-in hybrid. When that supplier went bankrupt, Fisker couldn't build cars. A year later, Fisker filed for bankruptcy too.

•       Quibi raised big money betting that people wanted premium short videos to watch on the go. It launched just as the pandemic kept everyone at home. It was gone within months.

Things change. Sometimes fast. And change cuts both ways: the same pandemic that hammered Live Nation and Quibi was a windfall for Zoom, delivery services, and home improvement retailers.

Most leaders aren't looking

You would think leaders would be scanning the horizon for what's coming. Many aren't. In our Strategic Business Leader Survey:

•       60% of leaders said their organizations didn't use a process to identify emerging risks.

•       Nearly two-thirds said they didn't develop scenarios for events that could disrupt their strategy.

•       Three-quarters said they delayed factoring a potential future risk into their decisions.

That's whistling past the graveyard.

Strategic foresight

The remedy is strategic foresight: anticipating change so your plan holds up, or adapts, when the world shifts.

It starts with environmental scanning. That means deliberately looking at what's happening outside your business that could meaningfully affect it.

The goal isn't to predict the future. That's a fool's errand. The goal is to avoid being blindsided and to be prepared to respond.

Where to find trends: PESTLE

A PESTLE analysis is a handy checklist for scanning. It keeps you from looking only at your own market, because some of the big changes, such as a pandemic or a recession (or even smaller but still meaningful changes) can come from outside your industry.

•       Political. Tariffs, government spending, elections.

•       Economic. Interest rates, inflation, recession.

•       Social. Demographics, customer preferences, workforce expectations.

•       Technological. AI, automation, new tools.

•       Legal. Regulations, labor law, data privacy.

•       Environmental. Climate, weather events, sustainability.

Plus your market. PESTLE covers the big picture. Don't forget what's closer to home: your customers, competitors, suppliers, shifts in demand, and substitutes for what you offer.

Any of these changes can help you, hurt you, or both. AI, for example, can threaten a service you sell today and create a new one you can sell tomorrow.

Trends collide

Trends don't arrive one at a time. They interact and amplify each other.

Suppose interest rates stay high. Customers get more value-conscious. Labor costs keep rising. Each is manageable on its own. Together, they add up to a margin squeeze: customers cut back just as your costs climb.

If you look at trends one by one, you're playing checkers when the game is three-dimensional chess.

And then what?

The impact that makes the real difference is often a step or two removed from the trend itself. Think primary, secondary, and tertiary effects. The simplest way to see the amplified effects is to keep asking, "And then what?"

Here's an example from my own business:

1.      What happens first? AI planning tools become widely available.

2.      And then what? More small organizations try to plan on their own.

3.      And then what? Many end up with plans that never get implemented, and demand grows for help with follow-through.

At first glance, that trend looks like a threat to a strategic planner. Two steps out, it may be an opportunity.

Plan for it or prepare for it?

Not every trend calls for the same response.

Plan for it. Some trends are clearly coming, such as an aging customer base. Address these certain trends directly in your goals and strategies.

Prepare for it. Other trends may break either way, like where interest rates go next year. Or they may not even surface or be meaningful. Keep your options open, decide now what signs would tell you it's time to act, and monitor the environment to see if these trends emerge and if you need to act.

Either way, don't bet everything on one outcome.

Your turn

Take a few minutes and write down your answers:

1.      What three trends are likely to help or hurt your business in the coming year? Use PESTLE, plus your market, to look beyond your industry.

2.      State each as a change with a consequence. Not "AI," but "Clients are using AI to do work they used to hire us for."

3.      For each one, should you plan for it or prepare for it?

4.      Pick the biggest one. Think about the secondary and tertiary effects it might create, Ask, "And then what?" twice.

Then test your thinking. Is this a real, meaningful trend? What else could collide with it and make it bigger? What might you be missing? A colleague, an advisor, or a peer group can help you see what you can't see on your own.

Firmer ground

You can't predict the future. You can make it less likely that it blindsides you.

As you plan, develop a list of the trends to consider and a sense of which matter most for the future of your business. Your plan will be built on firmer ground.

Want help turning those trends into a plan? If you are in the DMV, join us for the Planning for 2027 Workshop on Friday, October 23, 8:30 AM to noon, at the Maryland Innovation Center in Columbia, MD. Register here: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/plan-ahead-for-a-great-2027-tickets-1999937297293.