Over the last few years, we’ve been navigating a major shift. Our legacy business model got us here, for which we’re most grateful – but we knew it was running its course, and wouldn’t take us where we wanted to go. So about a year before COVID, we started pursuing our shift to Yakabod 2.0 in earnest. It wouldn’t happen overnight, we had lots of work to do on our software platform, and we’d have to rework our whole go-to market approach. Plus invest lots of money to do all of that. But we were developing a real clear vision for where we wanted to go, and we’d already run some experiments that proved the viability of our new model. Not at the scale we wanted – but viable nonetheless.
Managing such a transformation – re-invention really – of our company would would be hard enough in normal times, but you all know what happened next. The pandemic was one unexpected twist, of course, but there’s been plenty more making the business seas choppier than ever: volatile markets, unpredictable (and often onerous) policies, labor/employee challenges, political unrest and upheaval, even wars and rumors of wars. About the only thing certain in these times of great uncertainty is that there are some more discontinuities coming. That is, no matter what you believe to be some stable market reality or condition upon which you can make your plans … there’s some surprise coming even there that you just simply can’t predict.
And that’s where we are – as I’m sure many of you are as well.
With the passage of time, it’s even more apparent we have great clarity of vision. Better still, we know it’s from the Lord. Even so, there’s no clear way from here to there. And even if there was, things could be totally different next week. So how do you navigate THAT?
Well, you might recognize, as we have, that we’re in a Red Sea moment. It’s not the time to make 5 year plans. It’s not the time to try to plot out some detailed winding path that gets us from where we are to where we need to be. The landscape upon which we build that path is going to totally shake apart anyways.
In the original Red Sea moment, I can’t imagine any of the Israelites knew what was coming. From a careful read of the scripture, it seems unlikely even Moses knew what was coming. Fortunately, God is the one who makes a way where there is no way. His ways are way higher than our ways. In the Red Sea moment, He was about to do something that had never been done before, perhaps maybe never imagined before. The Israelites didn’t need a 5 year plan. They just needed to take the right next steps.
So that’s how we’re navigating this moment, too. Not making 5 year plans. Just making sure – prayerfully – that we’re taking the right next step. And having successfully done so, taking the right next one after that. Trusting God to do the stuff only He can do, to make the way where there is no apparent way. So how’s that working out for us? Well, we’re not yet in the promised land, but we haven’t drowned and the enemy hasn’t caught us either …
