With the advent of COVID-19, we have many executives getting overwhelmed daily by crisis issues.
For example: Can I charge employees’ leave days against their stay at home orders? Does PPP include commissions? Can I dismiss someone who doesn’t show up to virtual work sessions? And so on.
It’s easy to get paralyzed in considering a variety of moral, ethical and legal issues.
One of the enduring frameworks we use in our Scenario Planning process is the well-known 3-Horizons planning model.
This is useful because it doesn’t diminish the executives’ accountability to resolve the day-to-day dilemmas. But, it helps to realign their focus to include the responsibility to look at longer-term objectives.
Think of 3 Horizons as:
~ Horizon 1 ~
The COVID-19 crisis and daily operational challenges
~ Horizon 2 ~
Simultaneously developing the appropriate strategies and actions for a post COVID-19 world
~ Horizon 3 ~
The initiatives planned for the long-term transformations and pivots required to be successful a decade or more from now
One cannot discount the long-term initiatives for short term gains. As with every short-term gain, without long-term positioning, there is an inevitable payback to come.
