I love being able to respond to opportunities as they present themselves. I am not talking about possibilities. I am referring to legitimate opportunities, things that the organization should and wants to take advantage of when they come available. (Read HERE for a post explaining the difference in possibilities and opportunities.)
The problem for many organizations is that they are not structured in a way that allows them to react quick enough to take advantage of opportunities, before the opportunity window passes.
My advice: Be prepared so you can make quick decisions.
Here are 6 tips to be better prepared for the next great opportunity:
Have margin in the budget for emergency funding, as well as expanse funding. At Grace Community Church we have always operated extremely conservative. Even when cash flow was tight we were never spending all of our resources. We waited to do some things we may have wanted to do so we would have margin for opportunities as they arose.
Network. Some of the best opportunities come quickly and are known to few people before they are gone. Stay connected to others in your particular industry to know when a sweet deal comes available.
Stay current with culture and trends. Many organizations are reactive rather than proactive. Great organizations know the people and society around them and can respond as changes occur.
Have systems and structures in place that welcomes innovation. For example, organizations that have a healthy team environment can more easily shift workloads to accommodate new responsibilities.
Make change a part of the organization’s culture. Resistance is less likely when change is something people are accustomed to experiencing.
Be willing to move by faith. There are times when an organization has to take a risk or it will miss out on the opportunity.
How is your organization taking advantage of opportunities as they come available?
Great post, a couple of thoughts. I think that today’s companies miss the last point. They are unwilling to move or make decisions by faith. They are also often unwilling to do the right thing because it might go against corporate culture or rules. I work for a company who on the one hand is very lean and prides itself on being innovative, yet on this point can’t see the forest for the trees.
I do have a little problem with your point on staying current with culture and trends. To a certain degree that’s OK, but I’ve seen too often where we embrace the current trends only to find out that the trends were wrong and we’ve wasted valuable time and money and have perhaps alienated employees or clients. An even worse thing is when we embrace a current trend and it fails, but we’re too heavily invested to drop it or we are too embarrassed to realize we messed up and we keep going. Another problem is that failed processes keep getting recycled and popping back up. Several years ago there was a quality improvement mantra called PDCA (Plan-Do-Check-Act). It was a rehash of an earlier process improvement plan who’s name I have forgotten. The company I was working for at the time embraced this, but it fell by the wayside after a short time. Now we have the Six Sigma (LEAN) program, which is just another rehash of PDCA and others. Companies get caught up in these buzzwords and cool new things, even though they are typically just rehashes of things that really didn’t do what they purported to do. It’s not that there’s anything really wrong with any of these, but they will just never replace good old fashioned common sense and hard work.