What do you anticipate?

Much of life is anticipation.  From my vantage point I can see many things being anticipated.  Where I am, this is the spring that isn't: We are fervently awaiting warmth.  Likewise, we await some kind of positive resolution in Libya after the hurried imposition of a no-fly zone.  The Japanese people are desparately awaiting the staunching of radioactivity from their crippled nuclear reactors.  Investors are awaiting first quarter earnings reports and more signs of economic growth.

Note that the examples I give of anticipation are all macro:  the weather, a war, a catastrophe, the economy.  These are things that we have little or no control over. We cannot shape them.  We can only experience them.

It's the micro world that we can more directly control.  If we anticipate rain, we dress for it.  If we anticipate more economic recovery, we change our investments to capitalize on it.

When one is thinking strategically, it's important to make the macro/micro distinction.  What are the forces that we anticipate acting on us, positive or negative?  What can we do, given the existence of these forces?

Anticipation is a wonderful human trait because it allows us to be proactive.  Simply, if we anticipate something we can plan for it and we can act accordingly.  Alternatively, if we don't anticipate something we can be hurt by it.  The siting of Japan's Fukushima nuclear reactors on a high bluff over the ocean did not anticipate the height of the tsunami wave that hit the coast.  It was thought from a deterministic approach that because a wave that high had not been experienced it would not come.  Sadly, subsequent research has shown that a wave high enough to overtake the reactors had hit the coast a millenium ago.  Further, a probabilistic approach - asking what were the odds of it happening rather than had it ever happened in recorded history - would have dictated against siting the plant on the bluff.

What are you anticipating?  It's a key planning question.  What you anticipate should drive what you do to take advantage of, counter or mitigate the effects of the future. Otherwise, whatever your plan is and whatever actions you take will more likely be overwhelmed by unexpected and unanticipated events.

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