Today’s Problems, Tomorrow’s Ambitions

Andy Jordan is President of Roffensian Consulting S.A., a Roatan, Honduras-based management consulting firm with a comprehensive project management practice. Andy always appreciates feedback and discussion on the issues raised in his articles and can be reached at [email protected]. Andy's new book Risk Management for Project Driven Organizations is now available.

  Communications Management   Decision Making   Stakeholder Management   Strategy  

Many organizations find themselves with fewer discretionary dollars to invest in the current and upcoming periods than they initially anticipated, and they may be faced with the need to commit to unexpected short-term initiatives to help deal with the current economic situation. However, those changes should be viewed as a temporary slowdown to their long-term ambitions, an unfortunate speed bump that has an impact, but that shouldn’t prevent them from achieving strategic success over the next several years.

However, because corporate environments are somewhat more complex than domestic ones, the variables involved are more numerous and varied. As a result, the approach that organizations take must be more nuanced, and must involve all the stakeholders to help ensure that everyone has a shared understanding of what is happening and why. Here is some practical guidance.

> Ensure that there is clear communication. Rumor loves a vacuum. If an organization decides to reduce funding to a key strategic initiative to deliver a more immediate project to address current challenges without providing an explanation and context, then it’s guaranteed that within just a couple of days employees will be talking about how that strategic initiative is being abandoned, that the company is in trouble, that they need to be looking for a new job, and so on. On the other hand, …

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