Looking Forward

How far into the future do you plan? Some people are planning for their retirement, but only in a financial way. Others believe that you have to live for today, forget yesterday, and let tomorrow be what it will be. But as individuals and families I believe that we should take a page out of the business manual and think about our futures in a strategic way.

 For instance, successful businesses large and small, plan ahead; WAY AHEAD. Their budgets and line items for one year are considered the short-term. How many of us plan for the year ahead, unless it is to plan what we are going to do with our tax return or where we are going on vacation?

The short-term is not what I am speaking about here. What I want to focus on is the longer-range plans that businesses spend large amounts of money and time paying extremely close attention too.

In order for companies to be successful in the long term, the senior leadership team often leaves the daily, monthly, quarterly, and years end to the operational employees. What their ground level employees are doing today is based on plans that were constructed 5 or 10 years ago, and tweaked for today’s market.

What senior management is working on today, is the strategic plan for the future of the company, 5 and 10 years down the road. They do this by scenario planning potential outcomes for the future. They base this discussion on the current trends, the economic and political climates, population, technology and a host of other things.

They do this because companies in a reactionary stance fail! If you are trying to develop, manufacture, market, and distribute a product after it has been done by your competitor, you are not late to the game, you’ve missed it entirely.

All of that was being said, I want to think about ourselves and our families in a similar vain. Businesses have missions, visions, and value statements. Do you? The purpose of these statements are to ensure that everyone from the CEO to the person sitting at the front desk understands what the company stands for, where the company is going, and what the company’s values are. Does your family know those things about you? If not, then perhaps it is time for some serious retooling of the family’s identity.

It makes me think about generations with family crests. They meant something much more than the symbol one sees. The crest was about pride, unity, and reputation. We don’t do that in the black community very much, if at all.

I don’t have time for that!

But we should. We want our family members to be happy and successful. What we have to ensure is that the our children, our children’s children, and our siblings children receive not only the tools provided through school and mass media, but that they understand to tools related to pride, unity, and reputation.

The second step is to think beyond the short-term and to take the long-term approach. This requires not only decided where you want to be geographically, financially, professionally, and the family composition, but also scenario planning to prepare for the uncertain future.

What are the potential outcomes of the future? Not just good or bad, but specifically. What happens if the economic collapse goes on for 10 more years in Europe? How does that affect your family? We may not believe that it will have an impact on us in the United States, but it does. It affects the amount of foreign investment from Europe. It affects tourism here in the U.S. Think about the numbers of jobs associated with tourism in this country. If people cannot make enough money to come here for a visit, it affects our country on a local, state and federal level.

What if the economy in Europe is booming, but not so much in the United States? Could your family move to Europe for better opportunities? Perhaps you don’t have the third child or your high school graduating teens go to State schools. People come to the United States for the reason every day!

The point I am making is that when you are in the weeds, under debt, and unclear about your future – this is exactly when having a long-term plan for your family is the most important. If you are single, knowing who you are, where you are going, and what you stand for are all personal attributes that can never be taken away from you.

At the basic level families are organizations, small ones. Therefore, take the lessons of the successful and move into the future prepared to take the world by storm, not matter what happens.