YOU CAN’T CONTROL THE WIND, BUT YOU CAN ADJUST YOUR SAILS

“You can’t control the wind, but you can adjust your sails.”

While external forces may be unpredictable and beyond your influence, each of us has the power to adapt. More recently I have found myself in a number of fractional and consulting roles where a mindset shift by the founder and their team was crucial in helping them navigate challenges and seize a bunch of opportunities.

Here are the principles we applied:

• We embraced change – Regulatory changes happen, and instead of resisting, we helped pivot the strategy, ensuring we stayed compliant. Go figure, we then discovered a few new opportunities.
• We focussed on solutions, not problems – Projects can hit a major roadblock. Instead of getting stuck in frustration, we just pulled together to identify alternative options and adjusted our course slightly.
• We adapted quickly to new information – New data revealed shifting consumer preferences, and so we revised our marketing approach in real-time, leading to improved engagement, and reduced sales cycles.
• We maintained our perspective during uncertainty – When times were tough, we focussed on our core strengths, ones we could control, instead of becoming overwhelmed by external distractions and challenges.
• We were proactive rather than reactive – We built out a few scenario budgets, and made the effort to fight forward rather than continuously looking in the rearview mirror.

   

In every situation, while we can’t control the wind, we can adjust the sails.