Have you had the experience of feeling unseen, even though someone was talking directly to you?

Perhaps they said something to you like, “I know what you’re thinking!”

And then, as they announced what they were sure was true for you, it turns out they couldn’t have been more wrong?

Or maybe you’ve been guilty of that, yourself.

Projection is often at least part of what’s going on.

Projection is when someone “assigns” feelings they are having to someone else, often because they either do not see, or are unable to accept those thoughts or feelings in themselves.

When you are the one who has been “assigned” an erroneous feeling or thought by others, it can take a bit of time to realize what’s going on, and to try to untangle the stories people have created, or the misinterpretations that have been “cooked up,” somehow.

Projection is fairly common, and causes other problems.

It can lead to miscommunication, at a minimum, and various issues that arise when people are wasting time, effort, and precious resources, trying to solve the wrong problem – or busying themselves with a story but not trying to improve the situation, at all.

Projection can start from some simple observation, followed by assumptions and misinterpretations.

When we may draw these erroneous conclusions, they’re often based on our own past experiences, the way we believe we would have felt in such a circumstance, or any of many reasons why we assign a particular meaning to what we observed.

How can you reduce your own tendency to project, even if you can’t guarantee that it will never happen?

First, simply observe.

- What do you see?
- Would you hear?
- What do you feel?

Next, be aware of what you’re interpreting from what you observe.

- What do you interpret?
- Why are you interpreting it that way?
- Do you need to interpret what you observe?
- How could these assumptions or interpretations be helpful to you in some way?
- Could your observations or interpretation help other people involved, if they are correct? If so, how?
- Instead of interpreting, how can you check with the person, or people, involved to see if your assumptions are correct?
- If need be, how can you help the people involved? How can you check to see if that’s what will be most helpful to them?

Ask, don’t assume.

Be curious about the other person’s experience.

Care about what’s happening to that person, and in their world.

If you don’t care about what’s happening to the other person, what’s the point of taking the time and energy to form an opinion about this particular situation or how they’re handling it?

Free yourself and others of opinions you’ve formed if there’s no role you can play in improving the situation, or supporting those involved.

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Many companies struggle as they try to keep everyone focused and on the same page.

This is even more of a problem during times of great stress, growth, or other types of major change.

One tool you can use to overcome this not-on-the-same-page problem is to create a brief summary of your company, a Company Overview.

This brief overview of the company can help create a more consistent and higher quality experience for customers as they interact with people at your company.

It can also increase employees’ understanding and pride in the company they work for. The Company Profile can also be an important tool to managers and employees to discuss the value of employees’ work in creating company success.

As you create the Company Overview, you may discover strengths you hadn’t fully recognized or appreciated. You’re also likely to see areas where the company can improve.

If you’re thinking about creating a Company Overview for your organization, plan to gather and include information such as the following:

Who We Are and Why We Exist

- What is your company’s purpose, or the primary reason it exists?
- What is are you trying to accomplish, and for whom?
- What is your company’s vision of the future it is trying to create for itself?
- What is your company culture?
- What are your company values, or guiding principles and behaviors?
- What are your organization’s core competencies, or primary strengths? How do they relate to being able to fulfill your mission?

Our Customers and What They Want From Us

- Who are your primary customer segments? What do they need and expect from you?
- What are the main products and services you offer customers?
- How do you provide your products and services to customers?
- How do you provide customer support to customers who need it?
- How do you use feedback from customers to continually improve your products, services and support?

Our Company and Its Competitors

- What is your competitive position in your market?
- Who are your primary competitors now?
- What are the principal factors that drive success for your company, compared to its competitors?
- What are the major changes that affect your competitive position?

Our Resources and Governance

- What are the primary groups of employees in your company?
- What are the primary motivators that draw each group to your organization, and engage them in supporting your mission?
- Where the key benefits you provide employees?
- What are your main facilities, technologies and equipment?
- What is the regulatory environment under which your company operates?
- Are there any occupational health and safety regulations that govern your company?
- Are there certification or registration requirements, industry standards, environmental, financial, and product regulations with which you must comply?
- What is your organizational structure and governance system? What are the primary reporting relationships between your senior leadership, board, and parent organization, if you have one?

Who We Work With

- What are your key types of suppliers, partners, and other collaborators?
- What role does each of these groups play in your company’s success?
- What are the primary ways you communicate with customers, suppliers, and other key stakeholders?

Our Challenges and Strengths

- What are the primary challenges and advantages your company has now?
- How do you monitor and improve performance at your company?
- What are your key business, operational and human resource challenges and advantages?
- What are the key challenges and advantages for your company with respect to organizational sustainability?
- How do you monitor, manage and improve your company and its products and services?

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Could your company use a glossary?

“That’s ridiculous!” you reply?

You might be surprised.

As a consultant, I must go into a company and quickly learn as much as I can in order to come up to speed rapidly on foundation knowledge.

More often than you might guess, as I’m going through the rapid-cycle learning process as I begin a project with a new company, I’ve found that employees don’t know, or don’t agree on the meaning of some of the company’s most-used terms and acronyms.

Consider these examples:

For one project I had one day to “crash learn” as much as I could about the basic technology and terms involved in a major process. I was leaving the next day for a three-day offsite where I was helping the client company finalize a cross-company product delivery process.

To learn as much as possible, and as rapidly as I could, I dove right into all available information about key terms, processes, roles, responsibilities and other knowledge that was important to have for the process design and improvement work to be successful.

Eventually, I’d gone as far as I could in the process of learning on my own. I needed to clarify some things and met with a few people to close the gaps in my understanding.

I asked one manager fairly high up in the organization what one key acronym meant.

She admitted, somewhat sheepishly, that she didn’t know.

And the tough thing was, she was outside of what might be considered, unofficially, as the “statute of limitations” on when she could safely admit she needed to learn some of basic information at the company, too. I could ask the question she needed to because I was clearly in learning mode. She was supposed to have “graduated” it already.

At some point, it’s somehow assumed that people know what they need to know to do their jobs.

But if they don’t, and they’re afraid to ask, where do they go?

And who asks the question of the employees who work for them (and makes it safe for them to answer it honestly), “What do you need to learn, or know, that you don’t, to be successful in this job?”

In a second example, I was helping to create onboarding tools for a rapidly growing company.

The learning processes and tools I was helping the client company create were designed to help the cross-functional teams get established quickly and consistently, and start performing well together as quickly as possible.

We were editing a final draft of one product in the set of team tools.

In a meeting with two fairly senior people in the group, we discovered that each thought a key acronym meant something different.

They realized that many people in the organization were using the same acronym to mean different ways, and that it may have been just one of many miscues in a job and role that required excellent communication.

Is it possible this is happening at your company?

Eliminate the primary causes for miscommunication wherever you can.

One easy place to start is to make sure is to make sure that commonly used acronyms and terms are consistently defined.

In addition, make sure that other foundation knowledge that it’s important for employees to have is readily available. At a minimum, this is important to have when new employees join the company, or move to new jobs inside the company and need to get up to speed quickly and consistently.

Here’s how you can make your own glossary:

1. Make a list of key terms and acronyms.
2. Assign a person to complete the glossary by gathering and writing the definitions for the terms.
3. Ask a few people to review the glossary, noting additions or changes that they think need to be made to it.
4. Refine the glossary, reconciling any differences of opinion about what terms or acronyms mean.
5. Post the glossary on your website in a place where it will be easy to access and use.
6. Include contact information for anyone who needs to get more information about any of the terms, or to contribute new terms to the glossary.

In the process of creating and publishing the glossary, you may find other information you need to share, or to train people on.

Do everything you can to ensure that communication is clear and effective for the people working in your company. It can make a far bigger difference in effectiveness and business results than you expect.

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Delegating is no big deal. And giving good directions to others is a “piece of cake.”

Is that what you think?

Recall a time when you were assigned a new job or task, and the person making the assignment had:

- High standards
- A tight timeline before the work had to be complete
- Little or no time for you to ask questions of them, once the task was assigned to you so you were completely dependent on the instructions and resources they provided you

Now, recall:

- What directions did you receive for that work?

- What resources did the person provide you for guidance, in case you had problems you couldn’t resolve as you worked?

- How did it work out? Were you able to complete the assignment successfully?

- If so, what are the main reasons it worked out well?

- If there were problems with the project or its result, what made the work difficult?

I had the experience of starting a new job at a new company right into middle of the busiest season of the year in the department where I had been hired.

My manager had very high standards and I knew I would learn a lot there, which a big reason why the job appealed to me.

But I was also going to have a steep learning curve in this job, which I knew, and my manager knew, too. And I was not the only one like that in the department.

Delegating well, and providing effective guidance to new employees were leadership skills that were essential for success with this particular team.

Because my manager didn’t like to take the time to provide instructions or send employees to training, people in the group fairly often found themselves caught in a proverbial – and preventable – thorny thicket of problems.

One particular time, he and I had no alternative but to stop and correct something that had gone very wrong with a big deliverable on a tight timeline.

Suddenly there was no choice for him but to pause, slow down, listen and teach patiently and attentively.

He had many other leadership strengths that we knew, but no one had ever seen this one before.

And suddenly, with calm direction and teaching, the work now seemed easy to me. The problems seemed clear, the solutions achievable.

I learned a lot in that department, surviving the boot camp he’d created, perhaps unwittingly. And it prepared me well for other jobs at that company. But looking back, I still feel that the same thing could have been accomplished far less painfully.

Here are a few guidelines for you to provide good instructions, if you delegate work to others:

When you make the assignment of a project or task, provide this information to the person who will be doing the job:

1. Who needs this work? What will they do with the product, service or information that is being provided to them?

2. What are the customers’ standards for a high quality job, such as timeliness, cost, and quality requirements?

3. When does the customer need the work to be complete?

4. Is there a process or procedure they must follow to do the work? Where are the specific instructions for that?

5. Are there constraints they need to know about?

6. Are there materials or tools they need to do the job? Where will they get those?

7. If they need further guidance while doing the work, where should they go or whom should they contact?

8. How can they reach you as they work, if need be?

9. Will someone check the work before it goes to the customer? If so, who will do that, and when will that happen in the overall process?

10. What questions do they have? Do they need to have any information explained in another way to fully understand the instructions for what they must complete?

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Like a slow driver holding up many cars behind it in the fast lane, a “road boulder” may be clogging up the workflow and stopping progress for many other people at your company, or on your team.

It happens in many organizations.

“Road boulder” is a term I coined a few years ago in frustration about the people who drive more slowly than the flow of traffic in the fast lane on the freeway.

Often, there’s a mile or more of clear space – and pure potential – in front of them, but they stop the flow, even so.

The term also cropped up for me because I see road boulders of various kinds in companies’ workflows.

Road boulders not only frustrate the people behind them, but they can also create a very dangerous situation.

On the road, emergency response teams get caught in the no-exit-path logjam they create. In companies, people can be so distracted by problems caused inside the company that they miss significant signs of emerging problems outside the company.

The problem of road boulders can be corrected. And it can be prevented.

If you’re the road boulder at your company, you may be blocking others’ otherwise efficient, effective workflows by actions such as these:

- Providing too little direction, training and feedback to help employees stay on track
- Trying to control things you don’t need to control
- Not controlling things you should be managing closely, especially in high risk areas
- Poorly monitoring how well you’re meeting customers’ needs
- Poorly communicating with suppliers about what you need from them, and how well they’re meeting your needs

How can you find out – and correct the problem – if you or your department is a road boulder at your company?

Check in regularly with the people whose needs you’re supposed to be meeting. These are your customers.

They may be paying customers outside the company, or they could be customers inside the company who need your work in order to do their own.

Check, also, with your manager, if you’re an employee.

Check with your employees, if you’re a manager.

These are all potential customers of your work. You can accelerate their workflows through the work you do, or you can inhibit it. And you may not know what effect you’re having until you ask.

Ask the people who are dependent on the quality of work you provide them:

1. How well are we meeting their needs now?
2. Where could we improve?
3. What are we doing well?

Open the dialogue now, and continue it a few times a year.

You’ll find that the flow will grow as you radically reduce the chances that you and your department are company road boulders.

And in the process of gathering the feedback to make the overall system work better, you’re likely to collect a few accolades for your current work, too.

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Just because nothing’s clearly wrong with the way your company works does not mean everything’s going right.

The need for change can creep up on you.

And all too often, a crisis is the first way people realize something has gone too far.

It doesn’t have to be that way.

The need for improvements In your products and services, or the way you get work done in your company can be apparent much faster if you pay attention to subtle signs.

Like the subtle indications of changes in the weather, subtle signals can be leading indicators that something is slipping, sliding, declining…and the loss of customers can’t be far away.

“Why change it if it isn’t broken?” is a common line of thought.

Well, the reason to change something that doesn’t appear to be broken is that it may be heading that way.

If you have a lot riding on one part of your business, or one group of customers you serve very well, protect that valuable asset.

The gulf oil disaster is a dramatic example of the need to pay attention to the basic controls of the business, as well as subtle signs that something might have been going wrong.

It’s very possible the oil spill could have been prevented if the right indicators had been well-monitored, the warnings heeded and acted upon by people who had the responsibility and authority to solve problems when they were far smaller.

The tough thing is that if you’re watching the subtle signs, when you see indications that problems may be taking shape, no one really wants to be the person to say, “I think a bad situation might be happening.”

People don’t really want to be doomsdayers and naysayers (well, most don’t).

However, instead of moving away from troubling trends, build the instinct to move closer in. Look more deeply into what might be happening.

Changes in customer satisfaction, for example, are just one indicator of changes that may be underway.

As you consider this indicator of changes, consider that many companies view complaining customers as a problem they wish would go away.

But complaining customers can be a rich source of information, if you gather and use the information they provide in a substantial way.

Consider this: customers who complain still care enough to try to help you become better. And changes in the types of complaints they make, the frequency of them, and other aspects may be an early indicator of problems that are cropping up that you might not have noticed any other way.

Learn to monitor and use both obvious and subtle signs of change in customer satisfaction, among other possible indicators of problems that may be taking shape.

It can make a big difference in your being able to catch and then prevent significant problems for your business and everyone affected by it.

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You may think you’re ready for change – until you get up to the starting line and the action is about to start.

And when you do – much like standing at the starting line of an important race – that’s no time to find out you’re unprepared, or that you really don’t want to make the change, at all.

Change isn’t easy, no matter what type of change you’re making (or being asked to make), and no matter who else is involved.

But change usually works out far better if you’re ready for it – and all the twists and turns it can bring.

And it works best, too, if you seek it, rather than if change finds you.

Still better is the change you yearn for.

And best of all is if you’re driven enough to accomplish the change that you can move over, around, or through any barriers that crop up and stand in the way of where you are now, and the success you’re trying to create in the change process.

Change, of course, comes in many forms.

We all know from experience, and from the economic changes of the last few years which have not left many people untouched, in some way, that not all change is change we welcome.

Here are just a few of the types of major change that you may face at some time, and ways that you can adapt to them:

1. Change can be thrust upon us by life circumstances.

A lot of the process of change in these life-thrust-upon-us change circumstances requires acceptance, resilience, adaptability. Sometimes figuring out ways to “make do” for a while is required, too.

These are not experiences that dreams are made of. They are, however, sometimes the stuff that heroic stories are made of.

And like it or not, these experiences can be some of the ones that toughen us up most and make us strong, ready for even greater challenges of other types, later in life.

2. Great change may happen serendipitously.

For example, let’s say you have an interesting opportunity, and decide to take it. An interesting experience occurs, as a result.

You notice that you liked the experience, and decide to repeat the experience or experiment.

An interesting path starts to unfold.

Through these types of gradual change experiences, career interests or passions are sometimes discovered, new skills are developed, opportunities emerge, and rewarding relationships often emerge, too.

3. Change that you yearn for is the change that dreams are often made of.

If these changes are really big ones, they often take hard work and careful planning, and coordination with other people.

These changes are often driven by a very powerful and compelling vision you hold of the outcome you seek.

Whatever the change you face, to the degree you can be, it’s best if you’re ready for the race and challenge of change.

But that’s not possible in every case.

And no matter what happens, or why change occurs, you can’t anticipate and plan for all twists and turns, opportunities, challenges, and differences ahead that will emerge, no matter what type of change has come by.

Change doesn’t have to buckle you to your knees, nor does it have to overwhelm you, even if it is the type you didn’t seek.

Change is a fact of life. Being change-ready and change-responsive – if it’s not yet one of your strengths – is a change you’d best make, and keep.

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“Leave me alone! I don’t want to change!”

“Just let me get through this pile in front of me. The future will come – however it does – without my help today.”

You’ve probably felt this way – most of us have – at some point in our work or life about taking the time and making the effort to build a better future when faced by the problems of today.

Future-building brings many possibilities, but it also brings with it problems. And a major barrier to progress is always finding the time and energy to even try to think far beyond the pressures of the present day.

Thinking strategically takes a different kind of attention and energy than does getting products out the door and on their way to customers. It also takes very different perspectives and skills than does solving problems caused by decisions made and actions taken in the past, which may have caused problems which are just showing up, and must be solved at the moment.

Here are just five of possible barriers to building a better future through effective strategic planning, whatever organization you’re working with, or within.

See if any of these issues seem familiar to you.

1. You can’t see the future from here.

If this is a barrier for you, you’re filled to the brim, and beyond, with a sense that you can’t see what’s ahead, much less think about it strategically.

And you certainly don’t have the capacity at the moment to consider criteria for a successful outcome, envision alternate scenarios and chose priorities, or plan an optimal course of action, complete with accountabilities and due dates.

2. There are too many choices.

You may be feeling this if:

a) criteria for creating a desired future circumstance are not clearly defined yet

b) priorities are not apparent, at the moment

c) there’s not yet enough information about what’s going on, and what may happen in the future with the primary forces of change likely to affect your company’s fortunes in the future.

Whatever the case, having many options feels more like a burden than an opportunity in this situation.

And believe it or not, in this circumstance you may need more information, or you need to have the information presented in a way that makes it far more useful for planning and action-taking purposes.

3. Strategy is a dirty word.

Some people love setting strategy.

Others are far less enthralled with the “opportunity” that strategy-setting can present.

If you’re charged with getting things done and out the door, on their way to customers on a daily basis, you may feel that the full-time strategists in your company are never around to see how their plans actually work out, once implemented.

And you may wonder what your role is in this exercise of future-building. More than that, perhaps you’ve never really been involved in it, and you’re not confident of your abilities to do strategic planning effectively…but you don’t want to admit it.

4. Tomorrow has very little to do with today.

If this is the main problem you see with long-term planning, at least right now, this may be how you really feel:

“Help me see how the work of today relates to the work of tomorrow.”

“Make the strategy-setting and action-planning process tangible, achievable (and bonus-able), and help me feel a sense of achievement as we do the actual strategic planning work.”

“Make me feel a sense of accomplishment in the process, and the planning outcomes.”

“Make this part of my job – and teach me how to do it well – far more than you have today.”

5. There’s no guarantee about the future. We’re just guessing, and there’s a pretty good chance we’ll guess wrong.

The frustration here may be that the future doesn’t seem tangible, and the planning scenarios don’t seem realistic.

Perhaps prior strategic planning efforts have not been well-planned, well-managed, or effective.

In that case, the ease and eagerness with which people proceed is surely going to be mixed, at best.

And this, ultimately, is what you’re probably thinking if you’re not enthusiastic about being involved in what can be a significant future-building opportunity:

“Take the barriers out of my way if you want me to help you prepare for the future, today.”

Generosity is good.

Generally.

Sometimes you can be generous in ways that, ultimately, aren’t really helpful or desired.

And you can be generous in ways that, unwittingly, handicap the person you’re trying to help.

Generosity CAN sometimes hurt more than it helps.

“Helicopter” parents do this when they oversee or manage their children’s lives too tightly, leaving them little room to learn how to make good decisions, to be resilient, and learn from mistakes, to test and discover who they really are and who they want to become.

Similarly, micromanagers can have the same long-term effect on employees whom they over-supervise and can, ultimately, stifle.

Such managers may think they’re helping employees when they:
- Oversee employees’ work closely
- “Correct” work that’s not done exactly how the manager would do the work him/herself, even if it is within customers’ guidelines and quality standards
- Guess or assume what customers want, rather than to verify or correct

Real generosity – that with a long-term view – can show up in actions such as:
- Clarifying who your customers are and what they want
- Using customers’ priorities to guide decision-making
- Defining and refining work processes
- Communicating clearly
- Following up to ensure that actions being taken will meet customers objectives and company promises to them…or will manage the gap in performance to goals until it can be closed
- Teaching employees how to do all these things, themselves

Perhaps the reason that “helicopter” parents and microscopically managing managers aren’t generous from the perspective of others’ long-term development is that:
- They fear not being needed
- They miss doing the work themselves
- They feel more comfortable when work is done the way they want it done, despite what customers want
- They want accolades and approval (and their bonuses, yes) gained by producing immediate results more than they want accolades and approval for long-term team development and employee growth…and the increased results that come with it

If you recognize yourself as (like it or not) a micro manager, here are ways you can learn to be more generous in ways that develop employees for long-term improvement and results, along with meeting short-range goals, too.

1. Be clear about your objectives, as a manager and “people developer.”

2. Be clear about your objectives for employees. Talk with employees so standards and goals are clearly known.

3. Teach employees how to monitor and correct their own performance, using measures and performance-to-standard or performance-to-goal feedback mechanisms.

4. Follow good follow-up practices.

5. Notice when you’re most likely to dive into the tight oversight mode, or to start to swoop and redo work that’s perfectly fine from a customers’ perspective. Catch yourself and your behavior before the pattern goes too far.

6. Pre-plan actions you can take to divert yourself from your normal swoop-and-redo mode.

7. Understand when employees are just doing something differently than you might choose to do, but are meeting customers’ requirements.

In these cases, you’re often far better off letting them learn from the experience of making decisions, giving their approach or idea a try, and learning from the results.

8. Recognize your own progress and development as you learn to let go – and often, in the process, get better overall results from the people in your company or group.

Consider, also, the many ways you can be generous.

These are ways you can help the people you’re guiding to learn more and grow in confidence, technical and people skills, and produce increasingly improved results.

Consider this list of possibilities. How can you be more generous with:

- Time?
- Attention?
- Money?
- Teaching or mentoring?
- High quality listening?
- Praise?
- Advice?
- Demonstrating use of your own talents?
- Enthusiasm?
- Honesty?
- Being present, and sometimes silently, as an employee learns to assess his or her own work and customer satisfaction results accurately?

Learn to be generous in all the ways that really count…now, and for the long-range, too.

If you found this post valuable, please share it with friends and colleagues who can use this information, too. You’ll also like the free weekly newsletter I publish every Tuesday. Sign up for the newsletter here.

Sometimes you need…well…a good Plan Z in your back pocket.

That’s the plan you think you’ll never need, for the circumstance you’ll never see.

But then…

…there you are, in the midst of conditions you never dreamt could converge, all at the same time, in the same place, in quite this “perfect storm” way.

And you find yourself trying to glue together solutions you know you have to try, even as you fear they may not work.

And in the background, you’re thinking:

1. It would be so much better if you could have foreseen this…
2. …and then prevented it…
3. …and if not, if you had planned what you’d do if this type of circumstance did occur (and therefore, had that great Plan Z in your back pocket).

And so, you’re doing your absolute best to stop the problem and stem the damage.

An “opportunity” to experience “I Need a Good Plan Z” occurred for me recently, thanks to a computer that decided to go on strike quite suddenly, and a backup system that was not quite as tight as I thought it would be in tight turn circumstances.

Learn from my painful experience to prevent your own.

Let me just provide a bit of context:

My family and I had to take a sudden trip back to the Midwest for a family emergency. There was no time for delay.

In the rush to get on the first “red eye” flight, I reworked schedules, packed bags, deposited pets at kennels, advised neighbors of our plans…and got the computer ready to go.

Everything fell into place.

Almost.

The computer was unnervingly slow, and the backup system threw out a warning that I’d better back IT up or face serious data loss.

Troubling as it was, I had no choice but to set the problem aside because we had to get on our way to our nighttime flight. I’d just have to pick it up when we got back home.

When we returned after the intense, unplanned but necessary whirlwind trip, I knew I needed to trouble-shoot the backup system, but had immediate deadlines to finish meeting first.

I hoped to pick up without missing a beat, right where I’d left off.

And the plan worked, for a day.

Then…suddenly…

Pffft.

The computer ground to a halt.

No screen. No familiar sound of the machine springing to action.

Just a barely audible hum, letting me know there was still a minor sign of life under the proverbial hood.

It was soon apparent the computer had a stay – and perhaps a long one – for repairs at some cost in time, money, and data lost.

It turned out to be more than a week without my computer, hoping for the best when it returned.

Here are a few of the lessons I learned as I tried to make the best of a bad and unexpected situation:

1. First, don’t panic.

Consider if there really IS a problem, or if, instead, someone or something just needs a little time off to rest, recharge, recuperate.

2. What’s the worst that can happen? Be ready for that.

Figure out how you’ll handle the worst circumstance that, on first pass, you think could happen.

3. Now consider what could happen that’s even worse, and figure out how you’d handle that.

Don’t stay in that planning process for long (you may scare yourself if you do).

Spend just enough time that you know how you would respond, if it did.

4. Now, consider what your ideal solution is in the circumstances you anticipate, more than what you fear.

In my situation, I had irreplaceable family photos I’d downloaded to my computer and erased from my camera, but hadn’t had time to back up before the computer crashed.

My ideal solution, in that circumstance, was different from what it would have been if I’d just had a few draft emails I could have let go if all computer contents were lost.

5. Find out how bad the situation really is.

Get the facts.

Until then, you just don’t know what you’re dealing with. The circumstance may be better, or it may be worse than you expect.

6. Find out what your alternatives really are.

Choose the solution that most closely matches your priorities and “ideal” solution for the difficult circumstances you’re in, whatever they are.

7. Get moving and get a solution in place.

Delays, avoidance and head-in-the-sand moves won’t save the day – or your data, or whatever else it is that you’re trying to retrieve, retain or improve.

8. Expectations of a good outcome probably have to change.

An “okay” solution before this happened may look like a GREAT solution now, once your alternatives are reduced, along with the resources that are already reduced by having to fix something you had no idea was broken, at all.

9. In the process of working out a workaround, you may find that some changes or innovations you had to make, in the moment, are solutions you want to keep far beyond this experience.

You never know.

A great invention, innovation, or process improvement could arise because of the difficulty this perfect storm has brought.

Get through this experience as well as you can.

Then take a look at the good things this experience has wrought, if there are some. You’ll find, ultimately, that there surely are, and perhaps more than you thought.

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