Into the Unknown

Like most people during this time of year, I go through a process of reflection and planning. 

I distinctly recall my uncanny optimism going into 2020. Playbook Media was humming. We had a healthy book of business and I had big plans for growth in the months ahead. 

We hired on 3 new team members in January and signed a big account account in February. 

On March 11th, I flew to Denver for a Vail ski weekend for my brother’s 40th. We went out to dinner had a bunch of drinks and laughs that evening. The next day everything changed. 

The news started to talk of shutdowns. The virus counts skyrocketed in CA and Denver. And we spent the remaining 3 days in constant conversation of what might lie in the days and weeks ahead. 

I soon got the news that schools shut down and Facebook, Google, and others had all told their employees to stay home. I felt the only ethical decision was to follow suit. I distinctly remember reading the Slack post to my brothers before hitting send. 

I wrote, 

“Hi All - Just wanted to send a quick update on the Coronavirus situation. As we all know it’s quickly evolving. We received notice that the schools in our area will be closed starting on Monday. As a result, I will need to work from home a lot more as will others. Erica and I are also encouraging everyone to stay healthy and avoid unnecessary travel or interactions with large groups as much as possible. 

Starting on Monday I encourage everyone to work from home, but as I mentioned the office will be available if you want/need to come in. Same goes for the Wework. During this time we will have a lot of uncertainty with client budgets and our revenues as a result. We are already seeing performance drop for some accounts and expect budgets to follow. 

We are temporarily holding off on new hires to manage our costs accordingly. We will keep the job reccs open, so please feel free to send referrals through. 

Finally, I know it’s potentially a stressful time and our priorities will be shifting between personal and work. That said, we need to be diligent in continuing to uphold our promises to clients and deliver on the quality that they expect. Let’s work together as a team, over communicate, ask for help when needed, and support each other during this time. To be clear I am still very positive on our short term and long term future. 

This too shall pass. Thanks for all you do!”

At the time, I suspected the pandemic was going to last 6 weeks or so, but hindsight is 20/20 as they say. 

I outlined the next few months in a prior update, that you can find here. TLDR, the downtrend was hard hitting on our company, but we came together and hustled our way through. There are few things more rewarding in life than standing side by side with your teammates to fight through unforeseen and difficult obstacles in the pursuit of a common goal.

Now things once again look a bit more rosy. The business is healthy and the service offering we have is the strongest it’s ever been. 

Now is the time to push into 2021. Into the unknown. 

I am reminded of the quote by Dwight Eisenhower, “Planning is Everything. The Plan is Nothing.”

Over the past month we have been heads down in 2021 planning. The leaders of each department within our org completed a 6 page paper detailing past learnings and the plan for 2021. We have big growth goals this year. 

By all means we should be very optimistic going into 2021. The plans are sound. We have the cash in the bank. And the vaccine is being rolled out. 

That said, if anything is to be learned from 2020, it’s that life does not care about your plan. To truly achieve your goals, you must be nimble enough to change course when the needs call for it. You must have the tenacity to not back down to unforeseen challenges. And most of all you must have the emotional grit to get up every morning and face the day with the same rigor as you did the day before. 

One thing is for sure, we can expect for 2021 not go according to plan. I, for one, am thankful to have one.