Chamberwise: Planning is Important, But Responding to Events is Most Important

By Garry Douglas

All successful businesses and organizations engage in regular planning, at least annually, to assess progress and changing needs and to layout strategies and priorities based on the known and anticipated. But whether it’s an organization like ours, a business, a political campaign, or an economic region, it’s the response to the unexpected that defines success.

To cite just a few major examples of unexpected, impactful events:

• The closing of a major military base

• International commerce redefined by terrorism

• A pandemic with an unprecedented shutdown of businesses, education and cross-border travel.

• The shocking announcement of the closure of a major employer such as Nova Bus.

• The initiation of a trade war with Canada and unexpected tariffs on key materials. 

One of the top necessities for success in the face of the unexpected is the resilience born from experience, which is not automatic as lessons can be missed (or gotten wrong) and memories can be fleeting.

A continuing asset of our area which allows us to come through things and to outperform other similar micropolitan regions is the degree of resilience we have developed through events, and which is built upon the foundation of the closure of Plattsburgh Air Force Base. And the secret ingredient of our resilience is determined positivity as opposed to the natural negativity we all note in many other areas.

• Rally the right team and players.

• Focus on facts.

• Find the opportunities and best ways forward.

• And execute with commitment.

Added to resilience and positivity is the essential ingredient of flexibility. Try things, but know when to recognize the need to shift gears and direction without diminution of positivity and confidence. And then, essential to it all is having built and sustained the actual capacity needed to respond to the unexpected, as the unexpected is not apt to give you time to develop the needed capacity. Capacity comes in the form of the right people, connections, resources or access to them, creativity, and, ideally, credibility.

And so, the Chamber does its part in dealing with the latest forces of the unexpected. And, as we now develop our updated strategic plans and priorities for 2026, we must respond not only to the known, but to the elements necessary for the next unknowns.