Musings at Altitude

We woke up this morning to a beautiful sunrise and this picture from the front of our house:

We will have a spectacular morning in Colorado Springs, but the winter storm watch for this evening has already been posted.  Here’s the weather forecast for later today, courtesy of www.weather.com:

Isolated thunderstorms this evening, with snow showers developing late.  Low 29 degrees.  Winds N at 10 to 20 mph.  Chances of snow 60%.  1 to 3 inches expected.

And then for tomorrow:

Periods of snow and windy.  Cold.  High near 30 degrees.  Winds N at 20 to 30 mph.  Chance of snow 70%.  4 to 6 inches of snow expected.

As I sit here this morning staring at the ever so lonely cloud on my Eastern horizon, I have to smile in thinking that this one cloud can be foreshadowing such an ominous event!

But isn’t that like business too?  We can be cruising right along in bright sunshine and that one lonely cloud comes up on the horizon as a warning, or even promise, of potentially ominous times ahead.  Great businesses look at that cloud and then quickly find that forecast.  If that cloud is indeed a lonely transient in an otherwise spectacular forecast, those businesses charge on with a smile to the front and a cautious eye to the side – just in case.  If that cloud is indeed a forewarning of storms in the near future, great businesses prepare.  They adapt.  They change their business plans.  But they most certainly don’t charge forward hoping the forecast is wrong, and trying to outrun the upcoming storm. 

Or do they?   Is it possible to stay one step in front of that storm while still being prepared just in case we get engulfed in it?