WE ARE ALL MORE THAN OUR RESUMES
At a recent conference a speaker suggested that resumes typically describe work experience but fall far short of capturing a complete picture of our skills. Executives are often engaged in much more than their paid jobs.
This has been the case for me too. For the last several years, in addition to launching a consulting business and holding a full-time corporate position, I have been the President of the Ukrainian Culture Center of Los Angeles (UCCLA). I am the first female President of this 80 year old organization and have seen the organization through 2 crises now – COVID-19 and the russian invasion of Ukraine.
Along the way I have learned a great deal. Today’s post is the first of a multi-part series of posts in which I will share the key lessons I have learned, the mistakes I made and where my financial planning and analysis skillset served me in responding to russia’s invasion of a sovereign country. In the spirit of “making my mess my message” I hope these you find these insights useful.
LESSON 1: SCENARIO ANALYSIS WITH TRIGGER POINTS MATTERS.
For three weeks I watched the russian army build up its forces and drive toward the Ukrainian border. It was all over the news. The Sunday morning journalists talked about it in depth. The Ukrainian diaspora was also talking about it – amongst ourselves and with family and friends in Ukraine. The prevailing thought was “Putin wouldn’t dare”. Well, he did and I lost an opportunity to prepare for it.
For UCCLA, there should have been multiple scenarios run including but not limited to:
How will the role of UCCLA change in the event of a full scale invasion?
How will the role of UCCLA change in the event of a partial invasion?
How will the role of UCCLA change in the event of a persistent border threat from russia?
And even now, how will the role of UCCLA change in the event of a stalemate?
In each scenario, there are a several of items to consider:
1. Does the scenario in any way imply a fundamental shift in core values or mission?
2. What skillsets will we need to adapt?
3. How will the needs of our customer base change?
4. What new stakeholders will be created as a result of the scenario? Which ones will fall away?
5. How does the financial structure change in each situation? Has each scenario been modeled across your financial statements?
The trigger points were there – one only need reference the invasion of 2014, President Zelenskyy’s election, putin’s failure to contain Ukrainian democracy, tanks rolling up to the border, etc. Any of these should have led to analysis across the scenarios listed above.
As we look out into the near future there are a number of macro trigger points that will likely impact your business. Among them are the continued evolution of the use of AI, macroeconomic conditions such as interest rates, the growth of foreign conflict and the upcoming Presidential election.
Not going through scenario analysis for your organization results in a significant loss of opportunity to be prepared. That’s where I can help.
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