Political Uncertainty
Given the “will our democracy survive” stakes of tomorrow’s election, potential political change has been top of mind for leaders I’ve worked with recently. Not only are people personally unsure about what will happen, but the nonprofit leaders among them also recognize that election outcomes could significantly impact how their organizations operate—e.g., how governments will spend money, where philanthropic donors will be focused, and what issues will dominate the next Congress.
What has been interesting about those conversations, however, is that the massive scale of the potential changes seems to make it more difficult to reason through their potential implications. It’s like seeing a tornado on the horizon and freezing with fear rather than preparing.
An insight I had while discussing this with leaders is that “no change” is probably the option that is easiest to underestimate as a possible outcome. When the stakes are high, imagining that things will be very similar to today is harder emotionally to access. But just because the range of outcomes seems wider than ever does not mean that any of them will necessarily come true.
My second reflection is just how important it is to identify specifically what the implications of change might be. For example, I worked last week with a policy team at a think tank and asked them to answer this prompt about next year: What might be different that could affect how we need to approach our work?
Of course, they acknowledged that the politics might be different, but their work—such as writing reports, producing issue briefs, and planning events—would almost certainly remain. They might be calling different officials, but the core of the work would be making phone calls. In other words, the change might be well within the range of outcomes they are prepared to handle.
Identifying the implications of change is also useful because it makes it easier to identify what, if any, actions are worth taking today. Essentially, “Is this a today problem or a tomorrow problem?” Completely unrelated to the election, that question comes up a lot in coaching. In the last two weeks, I’ve discussed it with clients pondering career changes, family changes, and changes to their teams.
The point of the question is that while it is possible to imagine many possibilities, only a subset of potential outcomes require advance planning and even fewer of those require advance action. And if they do not require advance planning or action, some of the time spent on them ahead of time may be more about our anxiety and desire to feel in control than it is about preparation.
Seeing clearly the line between planning and rumination is only somewhat helpful, of course. We may all wake up on Wednesday or Thursday in proper freak-out mode. But until then, we can party like it’s 1999.