associationFOCUS | Volume 8, Issue 1

service. It’s better to look at their desperate needs now and ways that help them stay afloat, which in turn might help you stay afloat. This concept isn’t solely constrained to business and customer relationships. This touches on the topic of thinking about your employees who rely on you. You may be in business as a unified organization, but an employee now working remotely with kids at home and having to now think in terms of profits and losses in their personal life has unmet needs as well that you need to think about and act on. As you work to keep the doors open, what are you doing to take care of your own? Let’s return to the entertainment industry with an example of the National Basketball Association shutting down during this crisis. While it is no secret that owners, players, and team affiliates will be financially okay during this situation, the workers at the snack bars, restaurants, and merchandise stores will feel a major financial impact, if they can survive at all. However, many teams have stepped up and donated portions of their salaries to cover the losses the service employees will feel while out of work, which in turn incentivizes them to continue to work for the stadiums and gives them a sense of belonging to the organization. That has already created a positive change throughout the rest of the NBA, as other teams follow suit and help their fellow man and woman when in need. This positive disruption is spreading to other sports faster than any virus! Anticipation Will Get You Through This Hard times will pass, but the Hard Trend in times of complete uncertainty is that a new day will dawn with new opportunities to make a significant differ - ence unfolding with it. There will be a tomorrow, so what are you doing to anticipate, innovate, and seize the opportunity it brings with it? Are you using this pandemic to be a positive disruptor, or will COVID-19 close your business’ doors for good? It doesn’t have to. As my good friend W. Mitchell, who has been through several major accidents, says; “It’s not what happens to you. It’s what you do about it.” The way I see it, COVID-19 isn’t our biggest problem, it’s what we are doing, or not doing about it. Those of you who have read my latest book, The Anticipatory Organi - zation, know one of my principles is this: Take your biggest problem and skip it. The real problem for your business isn’t the virus, it’s how you are reacting to it. Don’t panic. Focus on defining the real problem both you and your customers are having and use the certainties found in Hard Trends to reveal a solution. There will be a future after the pandemic. If you are anticipatory, pre-solving predictable problems before you have them and becoming a positive disruptor creating the transformations that need to happen, you will find the future is bright. Daniel Burrus is considered one of the world’s leading futurist speakers on global trends and disruptive innovation. The New York Times has referred to him as one of the top three business gurus in highest demand as a speaker. This article originally appeared in the April 2020 edition of The Statement, the official member magazine of the Maryland Association of CPAs and is reprinted with permission. CONTINUED FROM PAGE 23 24 | association FOCUS