Chapter 7
Dealing with events
When Prime Minister Harold Macmillan was asked by a journalist what might derail his government, he is reputed to have replied: ‘events, dear boy, events’.11 As with Prime Ministers, so with managers. We have our plans, we have our teams and all is going well, at least on paper. And then along come events to spoil our well-laid plans.
For us, events may be unexpected. But the events themselves are predictable. Like having a car accident: to us, it will be completely unexpected and a shock. To our insurance company, it is so predictable that they can make money by insuring us: they know exactly how likely we are to claim, given our profile.
Many of the unexpected events you will face are routine: I can predict ...
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