“Hope is not a strategy.”
We’ve all heard it from top economists like Dr. Benjamin Akande (believed to be the first to share this notion), Anderson Cooper, and, yes, even Rudy Giuliani.
They’re wrong.
If hope is all you’ve ever had, if you’ve cleaved to it--then it was a strategy. And if you’re reading this, it may have worked.
Hope is a strategy, sometimes because it’s all we have.
Other times because it sharpens our focus on an outcome. For some of us, hope is the precursor to possibility, it widens our view, and grants us more safe bandwidth for risk.
I recently attended the Entrepreneur’s Organization global conference and was fortunate to hear Soledad O’Brien, broadcast journalist, executive producer, and entrepreneur, share these words: “Hope means being extremely clear about exactly what you want and clinging to that possibility with the full force of your being.”
Sounds like a strategy to me. The ability--the choice--to put the full force of your energy and focus on something to manifest it exactly as you choose it to be. It takes guts and grit and the ability to be precise and specific--to do the big and little things that must be done, to muscle through with a determined eye on the outcome.
We all build our businesses in different ways. Julie and I have never written out a strategic plan--well, except for that one year, which rendered our least profitable outcome. Also, we had little fun doing it, which is saying something since we always have fun. Also, we never looked at it again. “That’s the problem!” you might say if you’re someone who benefits from a rote planning process of OKR’s and KPI’s--“you never went back to it!” It was a great plan, and thorough. Yet it left little room for who we are, for imagination and expansion and how we operate in the world.
We meet our executive clients and their teams where they are in a moment, and we respond, adapt, and recast possibilities all with an eye on the shared outcome. That radical agility is our trademark, where we do our best work, and where we find joy (admittedly, I find more joy than Julie in that). It’s what we bring that is responsive to human beings, to the moment, and in service of the future. It’s our jam.
So, hold onto hope. When you’re feeling it--and especially when it’s one of the few feelings you have left to hang on to--breathe life into it. It can be a catalyst, a generator, a fuel cell--and even your ticket to phenomenal business growth.
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Corey Jamison brings more than 30 years of experience partnering with executives and teams around the globe to drive dramatic, sustainable organizational transformation. She has worked with leaders at all levels of some of the largest brands, and offers a level of experience, acumen, partnership and courage that inspires leaders and teams toward the hard work of taking it to the next level.