When Things Don't Go According To Plan

How Leaders Improvise, Modify, Adapt and Overcome To Achieve Greatness

One of the greatest challenges that any leader will face is when things don’t go according to plan.

You may have spent hours, days, weeks, or perhaps months, or even years, putting into place the plans needed in order to accomplish a particular project, run an event, or launch an new initiative, and the time comes, and then things...happen.

And the things that happen disrupt, interfere, pause, or halt those plans.

As a leader, it is on you to decide how to respond.

So, what to do?

In the military, there is a phrase that is often used to address these situations, and I think it can help us begin our discussion.

“Improvise, Modify, Adapt and Overcome.”

When confronted with a challenge, problem or obstacle, we are to do just this—improvise, modify, adapt and overcome.

Improvise

To improvise, we must be willing to develop a backup plan. And have a backup plan for that backup plan.

Understanding and Prudence.

But to do this, we must practice understanding and prudence. We must seek to examine and understand what challenges and obstacles might arise, and then develop a plan to negate their impact.

Modify

To modify, we must be willing to accept something less than the ideal for which we had planned.

Kindness and Detachment.

When needing to modify, we have to strive to be kind to others (and ourselves!) when the task can not be accomplished as we might have hoped for or even expected.

Additionally, we need to ensure that our ego is not involved in the plans, so you can more easily be detached from the outcome and are able to see the positive that will result from modifying the original plan.

“In the midst of chaos, there is also opportunity.”—Sun Tzu

Sun Tzu’s quote encapsulates this perspective, and helps us be able to adapt.

Adapt

Being able to adapt is especially important as it permits you to be open to pivoting and going down a path you didn’t originally choose during your initial planning.

Humility and Generosity.

Adapting will take great humility because you must be willing to admit when the original plan is not going to work.

You also will have to practice generosity because you will need to express generous praise and support for someone else’s idea or initiative that might have been discarded previously.

Overcome

Obstacles? Challenges? Complete Chaos?

These are all things that can be overcome.

How?

Perseverance and Trust.

Perseverance is a human attributes, but when combined with God’s help, nothing is impossible.

And trust that no matter what is happening, remember that you are not alone. God has a plan for you, and it is one of goodness and abundance and, if it is His will—greatness.

Now, these responses and attributes to cultivate in the midst of responding might seem overwhelming or a bit unrealistic.

But I can attest that they are not.

Once you incorporate them as part of your leadership practices, you will find that you will respond as the leader God created you to be.

In fact, I had a situation like this happen in a big way last week when my husband unexpectedly needed to be admitted to the hospital. The result was that all of the plans that I had made for the last few months in order to attend the National Eucharistic Congress with others from my parish had to be adjusted.

I wasn’t able to improvise a new plan because the plan itself had changed since I would not be going at all.

Therefore, I quickly ascertained that I needed to modify the plans, so I began to do that, like making another person the point of contact for the hotel reservations.

I then adapted the plan by cancelling the rental car because a larger vehicle was no longer needed for those still going to the Congress.

Finally, I overcame the remaining obstacles—things like communicating with those whom I had planned to meet at the Congress, and changing arrangements that I had made for support at home—all while I was going to and from the hospital located more than an hour away in the days leading up to when I was supposed to depart.

In the end, everything turned out better than I had expected.

I came to understand what I needed to do, and then made a prudent decision to not go to the Congress in light of my husband’s hospitalization.

I expressed kindness, especially towards myself, for things not turning out as I had planned, and I practiced detachment from the outcome so I was open to receiving the graces that resulted from my not going.

I practiced humility in recognizing that another plan was necessary, and then was generous towards those who were still going by transitioning the details of the trip into their care.

Finally, I was able to persevere despite the challenges of having to make these adjustments as I expressed trust that I was to be providing support to my husband during his five day stay in a hospital located more than an hour away from our home.

So, be filled with encouragement.

Through practicing these virtues, along with the practices of improvising, modifying, adapting and overcoming, you, too, can endure any “cross” you may encounter as a leader, and “offer them up” for success of the work you are going about in the vineyard.

In the process, you will become capable of sharing in the life of the Trinity and providing a glimpse of Heaven to those in the world around you.

But most importantly, all the blessings that God has in store for you, and for those entrusted to you, will come to fruition—thirty, sixty and hundredfold.

So, do not be afraid of things not going according to plan.

Rather, improvise, modify, adapt and overcome while practicing understanding, prudence, kindness, detachment, humility, generosity, perseverance and trust.

And trust that Heaven will be revealed in our midst.