Welcome back to the Business English Skills 360 podcast for today’s lesson on how to adapt to an ever-changing world.
Our world has been undergoing massive changes. And it’s not just the global pandemic that has wreaked havoc on the economy. There’s political turmoil, rapidly evolving technology, climate change, and calls for greater social justice. Our work and workplaces look and feel different because of this. There’s less travel, increased automation, more remote work, and moves toward greater equity and inclusion.
Nobody’s untouched by these changes. But not everybody is equally adept at dealing with them. Now, more than ever, we need to learn to accept, if not embrace, volatility, uncertainty and ambiguity. If you’re waiting for the world to go back to the way it was in 2019, you’re going to be sorely disappointed.
You might have heard that “change is the only constant,” meaning nothing ever stays the same. That’s easy to say, but not always easy to deal with. Many of us like certainty and stability. We get comfortable and we want to stay that way. But being comfortable shouldn’t mean being complacent, especially in today’s world.
Change doesn’t always happen at the same pace. These days, change seems so fast. And the COVID-19 pandemic has introduced new uncertainties and has accelerated certain trends, like the move toward remote work. Many industries have been battered. And the fact that people are tired of the word “pivot” only demonstrates how the pace of change has accelerated.
Welcome back to Business English Pod for today’s lesson on talking about strategic responses during a scenario planning meeting in English.
It’s impossible to predict the future exactly. But that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t bother trying. After all, we don’t create business strategies based only on today’s realities. We need to think about what will or might happen and how we will respond to these possible events.
So if we’ve done the work of laying out future scenarios, then how exactly do we plan our strategic responses? To start, you’ll need to choose an overall strategic posture. Are you going to take the lead in your industry? Or will you sit back and respond to things as they happen?
Your strategic posture depends in part on the possible impacts of future events and your choice of strategies. You need to discuss these impacts in order to choose the best course of action out of several possibilities. So this means you’ll be doing a lot of discussing alternative strategies.
In strategic planning, we often say that you can have anything you want, but you can’t have everything you want. For this reason, you will have to ask your team to prioritize, or decide which strategies are most important. And to make those decisions about priorities, you’ll need to discuss hypothetical results of different actions.
In today’s dialog, we’ll rejoin a meeting of executives at a large retail firm. Gwen is based in the US headquarters. She’s discussing strategies with Natasha and Daniel, who head up the firm’s operations in another country. The group is discussing strategic responses to future scenarios they’ve already mapped out.
Listening Questions
1. What strategy does Daniel suggest for their larger urban stores?
2. What does Natasha suggest instead of making big cuts to their operations?
3. What does Gwen say could be the ultimate result of the changes they’re discussing?
Business planning doesn’t look like it used to. The world today holds so many surprises and so much uncertainty. There is constant and unrelenting change, and sometimes it feels like we’re just trying to keep up.
In these circumstances, it’s a good idea to map out possible future scenarios. This type of exercise is often built on several key uncertainties that you’ve already identified. Mapping out the different scenarios is necessary before you can begin to develop strategies to respond to these possible future situations.
One thing you’ll do when you discuss scenarios is make predictions. In some cases, you’ll be able to make predictions with a great degree of certainty. In others, you’ll have to check whether you’re more certain than you should be. In particular, you might be affected by availability bias, where the available information leads you to make predictions with too much certainty.
Because we can’t always be certain, we find ourselves discussing the likelihood of certain events, or how probably they are. It can be tempting at this point to begin evaluating possible strategies, but it’s best to resist this and focus on the scenarios first. And throughout, you should watch out for assumptions that might cloud your thinking, or make you think unclearly.
In today’s dialog, we’ll rejoin a discussion at a large retail firm. Natasha and Daniel are executives discussing their country’s situation with Gwen, who is based in the U.S. The group is mapping out scenarios based on the situation they’ve already discussed.
Listening Questions
1. What does Natasha predict with certainty?
2. According to Daniel, how likely is it that sales will go down 30%?
3. What assumption does Natasha call Daniel out on?
Welcome back to Business English Pod for today’s lesson on scenario planning meetings.
How do we plan for a future that’s so uncertain? On a global scale, we’re faced with a pandemic, climate change, social unrest, and political instability. On a local level, your business could be dealing with another set of challenges. So how can we plan for what might happen in the future?
One of the approaches that organizations take in uncertain times is scenario planning. In a nutshell, scenario planning involves discussing different possible future situations, and planning for each possibility. This kind of planning typically starts with exploring the situation.
Exploring the situation often involves a lot of speculation, as you discuss what might happen in the future. This helps you identify the key uncertainties you’re contending with. Of course, circumstances differ from place to place, so you may find yourself explaining contextual differences when you plan for different scenarios.
These discussions can be quite complex, so it’s often a good idea to ask for a summary of the issues. One more very important aspect of scenario planning is using evidence to guide the discussion. In some cases, you will need to use this evidence to counter other people’s optimism about the future.
In today’s dialog, we’ll listen to a scenario planning discussion in a large retail firm. Gwen is in a leadership position in the company’s US headquarters. She’s talking with Natasha and Daniel, two executives based in another country. The company is faced with the enormous challenges that the COVID-19 pandemic presents. And in this discussion, they’re exploring the entire situation.
Listening Questions
1. At the start of the conversation, what government relief program does Natasha speculate about?
2. What does Daniel say is one of the biggest uncertainties they’re facing?
3. What possible change does Daniel believe might happen but Natasha doesn’t?
