5 Critical Advisor Steps to Plan for Your ‘New Normal’

401k, fiduciary, new normal, Trone, retirement

Serious questions in need of serious answers.

When you’re given the go-ahead to reopen, there’s a strong likelihood that you’ll not be going back to business as usual. You’ll be facing new risks; the markets will have changed; your competitors will have changed; you may no longer have the right assets to pursue the opportunities you want; and, you may never get back to your pre-crisis operational rhythm—it will likely take you longer to get anything done.

One other significant factor; in this time of economic contraction clients are going to be more demanding, and it’s going to be harder to build, maintain, and restore their trust.

Planning for your new normal is essential.

You’re going to need more than the back of an envelope, and you’re going to have to be willing to put time into its preparation. The time you put into planning is going to determine the quality of your reopening and whether you’ll be a successful first mover.

To assist you with your planning, we’ve designed a universal decision-making framework. It’s simple, which is a critical success factor when operating in a complex environment. Simplicity helps to improve communications and build trust by demonstrating that you follow a disciplined and standardized process.

There’s an additional benefit to this particular framework—not only can you use it to define your new normal, but you can also share it with your clients so they can use it to define their own. It’s universal, so it can be used to structure a strategy for any type of business or activity—no matter the industry sector or domain.

Also, if a client is a lay-fiduciary who’s managing the assets of a pension plan, foundation, endowment, or personal trusts, the framework can double as a fiduciary review that reinforces a prudent process.

The framework consists of five steps and ten dimensions – a dimension defines the details of a step. For each step, we have prepared questions to make it easier to fill in the details for a dimension.

Step 1: Analyze 

Step 2: Strategize

Step 3: Formalize

Step 4: Implement

Step 5: Monitor

A final comment: this crisis management framework also can be used to substantiate a fiduciary, governance, or project management standard. By operationalizing these steps and dimensions, you’ll be able to demonstrate that you’re following a procedurally prudent process.

Your new normal is going to be anything but …better plan accordingly.

Don Trone is one of five Co-founders of 3ethos. The other Co-founders include Dr. Sean Hannah, Mary Lou Wattman, Rear Admiral Steve Branham, USCG (Retired), and Dr. John Sumanth.  3ethos is conducting original research in the field of Behavioral Governance – the study of the interrelationships between leadership, stewardship, and governance.

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