What’s the ideal scenario, and the worst that could happen?
In this increasingly unpredictable world it’s easy to become anxious about the uncertainty, of what may or may not happen, and from there, to fall into the classic trap of “waiting until things become clearer”.
Perhaps it’s because of the legendary risk aversion of charity boards that I’m seeing this trait more frequently of late, but there are wider psychological reasons for it as well.
Most of the time when we think about the future, we think in terms of predictions and probabilities; typically imagining one particular outcome and asking ourselves how likely it might be.
But because of an unconscious bias called “loss aversion”, we tend to think more deeply about bad outcomes than good ones, which is what leads to the fearful paralysis over making possibly rash decisions.
There is a solution though, the ideal scenario, and it’s surprisingly simple and effective.
To explain by example, a little while ago I was working with a charity on its strategy for the next couple of years, but before the process could complete, discussions began with another organisation about potentially merging.
Anyone who’s been in that position will tell you these conversations can drag on for months and all kinds of strategic moves can end up on hold as well-meaning trustees deliberate and vacillate while kicking every other can down the road.
The fact is though, that there are only two possible outcomes: the charities merge or they don’t. And for each outcome there’s a best-case and worst-case scenario – there’s a merger that’s either seamless or a shambles; or an agreement not to merge that either strengthens or scuppers the working relationship.
In less than an hour, we had outlined clear pictures of all four scenarios and talked about what implications they each would have for the strategy – what would be affected by a specific scenario and, more importantly, what would still be relevant in all of them.
We then took another tack, and talked about what factors would make the difference between the worst and best scenario for each of the two outcomes, and what could be done to reduce the chances of the worst and dramatically increase the likelihood of the best.
By the end of the session the team had a completely different mindset around the merger, a clear set of priority topics to discuss with their counterparts, and a whole bunch of stuff that they could safely get moving with in the meantime, because they all appeared to be useful in every scenario.
I’ve introduced people to various types of scenario thinking more times than I can count, sometimes with boards or executive teams, sometimes when I’m coaching an individual, and in every case it invariably proves insightful.
It helps clarify what a great outcome looks like, and what it might take for it to come about, and it gets not just the ideal scenario, but also the worst-case out of our heads and onto a sheet of paper, where we can stop fretting about it and work out how to mitigate it.
And along the way, it helps us to better understand the choices we face and the agency we have, and more than that, it allows us to become more comfortable navigating the uncertainty ahead.
The one thing to remember here is this: with scenarios, we’re not trying to predict what will happen, we’re exploring the edges of what could happen, and asking ourselves two questions: “what would we do if we found ourselves in that situation, and what would we wish we had done in advance?”
By exploring the edges, we can understand the territory inside them and start to create plans, some of which we will want to do anyway, and some that will only be used if it looks like we need them, but at least they will be ready to go if it turns out we do.
Scenarios are not predictions, they’re not there to be right or wrong, they’re there to be useful. Because it’s only by accepting we can’t predict the future, but we can cope with both the ideal scenario and its worst case sibling, that we can gain the perspective and confidence we need to shape it for ourselves.