I had a big business surprise from one of my book distribution partners earlier this week. That upended all my careful plans. Since I’d been away from my office, this was my week to “catch up.” Ha! Foiled again.
By definition, surprises are things we cannot anticipate. And this one was a doozy. While I don’t like business surprises, I also don’t postpone dealing with them. I would much rather settle back into my daily routine.
Not all surprises are bad. If you like receiving presents, you might like getting a surprise from other people. My younger daughter found a cow duck and surprised me with it! (Is that not the cutest cow duck you have ever seen?) That was a great surprise.
But that’s when I realized we have many options to manage surprises. I suspect that many of us think surprises are risky or bad. That might change the way we see and react to them.
While I had the same surprise as many of my other colleagues, I found a way to react and prevent any more business surprises. But not all of my colleagues have done the same. Some of them chose to:
- Wait to see what will happen next.
- Postpone any decision based on waiting for that distribution partner to change their practices.
- Freak out.
I don’t find any of those reactions useful, but my business is not theirs. In particular, I choose not to do business with jerks. Once a company says, “I’m a jerk,” I believe them. (See Consulting Tip #7: Beware of Other People Using Your Intellectual Property for Their Exposure for another story.) Even when the company backpedals, which this one tried to do, I believe them the first time.
But how do you manage surprises? You have options.
Options to Manage Surprises
Here are the options I tend to use:
- Gather more data.
- Ask other people about their experience with this surprise
- Determine the risks before I choose to act.
Gather More Data
Sometimes, waiting to see what will happen next is a useful approach, especially if you spend that time gathering information. This particular distribution partner has a history of tying up other creators in exclusive agreements. They also have a history of paying creators less than I think is reasonable. So I already had information in the form of data about this partner.
Ask Other People
Sometimes, I don’t know anything about the surprise, so I’ll ask other people. This is related to gathering more data, but is about direct experience, not gathering available information online.
Determine the Risks of Acting or Not Acting
Sometimes, there are risks when we act quickly. I was already poised to be able to move my distribution from one partner to another. This experience made me do that work this week, instead of waiting. But if I wasn’t able to act right away, how much of a risk was that really? Well, this partner was ready to use my IP (Intellectual Property) without my real consent. It was consent by default. Not consent by acceptance.
Those risks felt quite real to me.
We each have an immediate reaction to a surprise. But we can’t act as ostriches when we have either good or bad surprises. We need to act, to manage those surprises.
That’s the question this week: How do you manage surprises?
Johanna, one of the most valuable skills we can build in our arsenals is the ability to constantly monitor what matters to us, and stay two steps ahead of what is currently happening.
I believe this is a great way to minimize the possibility of being surprised (especially unpleasantly). It takes patience and effort, kind of like weight-training or learning to play a decent game of chess, to expand the capacity for broadening one’s scope and span of control. While I don’t spend my life hyper-vigilant and always expecting to encounter something unknown or threatening, neither do I completely ignore the possibility that I might want to prepare for an unpredicted or even unwanted event — contingency planning has always been a priority for me.
A great way to prepare for surprises is the B-Tree — “If I do this, what are the two most likely outcomes?” followed by the same question for each of those likely outcomes. The possibilities reveal themselves quickly, and it only takes two, maybe three levels, before you reveal to yourself what your strengths and weaknesses are, especially where surprises coming from left field are, and how you’ll address them.
And I do agree completely with the options you identify for managing suprises.
Marsha, I suspect you and I think differently than people who continue to believe the Status Quo will continue. I do like the idea of the B-tree. Nice!