Congratulations! Whether you are building a new business resilience program or enhancing an existing one, what lies ahead is an opportunity for you to build great value for your company and reap the rewards that come with it for you and your family.
But before you jump in, perhaps take a deep breath, sit back with a hot cup of coffee, tea, cocoa and decide where you want to take this exciting opportunity.
What are your goals? What do you want to achieve short term and long term? What will make your management happy? What will make you happy going to work every day? As Steve Jobs used to ask, “what makes your heart sing?”
Tip – Write down your goals. Writing them down makes them real. You will be able to refer to them as you progress. You do not have to go into precise details at this point, as you have not even gathered requirements from your management and process owners. Just start thinking about those high-level goals and write them down.
In my case my overriding passion is leveraging technology to create exceptional value. You will hear a lot more about how I have taken companies to a 10x level later in the book. The reason I mention it now is when I start a new program I promise myself and my teammates that I will help build a ‘state of the art’ resilience technology infrastructure for our company. It is always my goals and I am proud to say I always achieve it.
By relentlessly focusing on my high-level goals I have been able to make them a reality every time. So, if you can list 5-6 high level goals you will have an end-game to work towards. You will have targets. I learned early on when I was a software developer to start at the end. Understand management’s goals and your goals and then work backwards to make them realities. That will allow you to build the more detailed steps and delivery dates to reach each goal in the required time-frame. This process has worked for me every time and it will for you as well.
Tip – Approach the challenge of building a world-class business resilience program in a relaxed and confident manner. Don’t stress! Life is too short. Being tense and uptight won’t help. I used to worry about everything that could possibly happen. It never did me any good. In the handling stresspost I talk about how a few small adjusts on how I looked at life made all the difference to my success both personally and professionally.
Tip – Make your teammates better. For me it has been easy to do that as I have been blessed with great business continuity and Information Technology teammates throughout my career. The thing about business resilience and continuity is that you are most likely understaffed for all that you would like to accomplish.
Leveraging the varied skills and passions of your entire team is critical. We all have our strengths. I have learned so much from my teammates and hopefully I have been able to pass some knowledge on to them.
Tip – Make management and employees better. It is all about them. If you help them succeed and alleviate their pain, you will succeed. If you solve the answers to the question you ask them, ‘What keeps you up at night? ‘, you will definitely succeed. Be outward rather than inward and your dreams will come true.
Tip – Be persistent. It is so important. If you are persistent and do not give up, you will find a way to get it done. Most people encounter resistance and quit on the two-yard line (American football analogy). It is sad but true. Do not let that be you.
Tip – Build great relationships! The relationships you build will be so valuable to you while building your program and at time of crisis. If you can bring the right people into the conversation you will be successful. If you try to do it as a silo effort you will fail. You must be building relationships and fostering communication on a regular basis. This one tip helped me get through many disruptive events with flying colors!
So, relax, have fun and go out there and build a world-class program! You can do it!