Importance of Preparation

The best CEOs plan for 3 different scenarios at once (this transformed my approach to uncertainty): I used to create one "realistic" forecast each year. Then spend 12 months explaining why we missed it. Everything changed when I learned this framework from a mentor who'd scaled multiple companies: Plan 3 scenarios. Execute 1. Adapt quickly. 📊 BASE CASE (95% likely) "What happens if we maintain current performance?" - Focus on core strengths - Maintain spending discipline   - Protect 12+ months runway 🎯 STRETCH CASE (50/50 shot) "What can we achieve with focused execution?" - Expand into 1-2 new areas - Invest in proven ROI initiatives - Keep 6-12 months buffer 🚀 BOLD CASE (25% moonshot) "What's possible if everything goes right?" - Transform multiple areas - Accept lower margins for growth - Operate with 3-6 months runway The magic isn't having 3 spreadsheets. It's what happens when reality unfolds: Q1 tracking to BASE? → You've already planned for efficiency → Team knows exactly what to protect → No panic, just execution Q2 hitting STRETCH markers?  → Green light those strategic hires → Unlock the growth investments → Everyone knows the playbook Q3 approaching BOLD territory? → Time to accelerate aggressively → The plan is already approved → Full speed ahead Instead of surprising your team with pivots, they know all 3 paths from day one. Instead of emergency board meetings, you just point to which scenario you're tracking. Instead of reactive decisions, you make proactive moves based on clear triggers. The result? - Your team trusts the plan - Your investors respect your risk management - You sleep better knowing you're prepared Most importantly: You stop being surprised by reality. And start being ready for it. Every successful scale-up I know uses some version of this. Because uncertainty isn't the enemy. Being unprepared for it is. P.S. Ready to build your 3-scenario plan? Download my framework free:  https://lnkd.in/dhn9y3zq ♻️ Repost to help a leader in your network. Follow Eric Partaker for more planning insights. — 📢 Want to lead like a world-class CEO? Join one of my FREE TRAININGS THIS WEEK: "How to Develop the Mindset Shared by the World's Best CEOs" Wed, July 16th, 12 noon Eastern / 5pm UK time https://lnkd.in/dJRpFXnb "How to Successfully Scale Your Company & Become a World-Class Leader" Fri, July 18th, 12 noon Eastern / 5pm UK time https://lnkd.in/djt83NUz 📌 LAST CHANCE TO APPLY for the CEO Accelerator cohort, starting July 23rd. Learn more here and join 40+ Founders & CEOs: https://lnkd.in/dbE5rkYB

𝗙𝗿𝗼𝗺 𝗙𝗲𝗮𝗿 𝘁𝗼 𝗙𝗼𝗰𝘂𝘀: 𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗣𝗼𝘄𝗲𝗿 𝗼𝗳 𝗮 𝗣𝗿𝗲-𝗣𝗲𝗿𝗳𝗼𝗿𝗺𝗮𝗻𝗰𝗲 𝗥𝗼𝘂𝘁𝗶𝗻𝗲 In this video, Molly Carlson experiences fear while initially standing on the bridge, yet demonstrates remarkable composure as she moves through her pre-dive routine when doing the dive. This is a great example of how a pre-performance routine can help athletes manage pressure and maintain performance standards, even when distractions or nerves are present. 𝑾𝒉𝒂𝒕 𝒊𝒔 𝒂 𝑷𝒓𝒆-𝑷𝒆𝒓𝒇𝒐𝒓𝒎𝒂𝒏𝒄𝒆 𝑹𝒐𝒖𝒕𝒊𝒏𝒆? According to Moran (1996), a pre-performance routine is a sequence of task-relevant thoughts and behaviours that an athlete engages in before performing a sporting skill. 𝑫𝒐 𝑷𝒓𝒆-𝑷𝒆𝒓𝒇𝒐𝒓𝒎𝒂𝒏𝒄𝒆 𝑹𝒐𝒖𝒕𝒊𝒏𝒆𝒔 𝑾𝒐𝒓𝒌? Research suggests they can be particularly valuable under pressure. Mesagno et al. (2008) found that athletes using a pre-performance routine performed up to 29% better in high-pressure situations than those who did not use one. 𝑾𝒉𝒂𝒕 𝑴𝒂𝒌𝒆𝒔 𝒂 𝑮𝒐𝒐𝒅 𝑷𝒓𝒆-𝑷𝒆𝒓𝒇𝒐𝒓𝒎𝒂𝒏𝒄𝒆 𝑹𝒐𝒖𝒕𝒊𝒏𝒆? Mesagno and Mullane-Grant (2010) highlighted several important components: 🌬 Deep breathing Two slow, deep breaths can help athletes regulate arousal before performance. For example, inhaling through the nose for around 5 seconds and exhaling through the mouth for 9–10 seconds. 🧠 Cue words Athletes can identify task-relevant words or phrases that focus attention on important aspects of their performance. A rugby goal kicker, for example, might use cues such as “coil” and “follow through.” ⏰ Timing consistency The routine should be consistent. Coaches can time the routine during practice so athletes become familiar with its duration and sequence. 🤛 Left-hand contraction Interestingly, recent research has explored left-hand contractions as part of pre-performance preparation. Mizuno and Masaki (2024) found that contracting a ball in the left hand immediately before a tennis serve improved performance compared with a control condition. Wadhwani et al. (2024) suggested that these effects may persist for at least 15 minutes. 🧠 Visualisation Athletes can also incorporate imagery into their routine, as Molly appears to do before her dive. 𝑰𝒏𝒅𝒊𝒗𝒊𝒅𝒖𝒂𝒍𝒊𝒔𝒆𝒅 𝑷𝒓𝒆-𝑷𝒆𝒓𝒇𝒐𝒓𝒎𝒂𝒏𝒄𝒆 𝑹𝒐𝒖𝒕𝒊𝒏𝒆𝒔 Perhaps most importantly, there is no single “perfect” routine. Pre-performance routines should be individualised (Mesagno & Mullane-Grant, 2010). One athlete might say their cue words while breathing; another might use them before or after their breathing routine. Some may benefit from visualisation, while others may prefer a simpler approach. The key is to experiment, establish an effective routine, and then practise it consistently. Athletes tend to perform better when they adhere to their established routine rather than deviating from it (Lonsdale & Tam, 2008). Molly's pre-dive routine is a powerful reminder that performing under pressure isn't necessarily about eliminating fear, it's about having a process that allows you to perform despite it. (🎥: Red Bull)

They were Six weeks into a new role. Day one, no laptop. Day three, still no laptop. IT hadn't been told he was starting. Week two, no CRM access. The account data he needed to do his job was sitting behind a login nobody had set up for him. Week four, his first customer meeting. He turned up without the category data his predecessor had used for two years. Nobody had told him it existed. Week six, he called me. "I don't think this is going to work." I called the Sales Director. Asked what had happened to the onboarding plan. "We're a fast-moving business. We expect people to hit the ground running." He'd managed a 9m territory at his last company. He knew exactly how to hit the ground running. He just needed someone to show him where the ground was. He resigned at the end of month three. Took a role with a business that spent two weeks doing nothing but onboarding him properly. The CPG sector loses more good commercial hires in the first ninety days than at any other point. Not because the people aren't good enough. Because nobody thought about what they needed to succeed before they walked through the door. Hiring is not finished when the contract is signed. It has barely started.

What is FAT in Instrumentation? FAT means Factory Acceptance Test. It’s a planned test done at the vendor’s or integrator’s workshop before the system reaches your plant. In instrumentation, FAT isn’t just a formality. It’s your first chance to verify that the system works; safely, correctly, and according to your spec. You generally check: • Loop wiring and I/O mapping • Device tags and signal ranges • PLC logic, alarms, interlocks • HMI screens and controls • Communication (Modbus, Profibus, Ethernet, etc.) 🛠️ If it fails at FAT, it saves time and cost. If you skip it, you carry problems to site. My tip: Always simulate field conditions during FAT. Don’t just power it up; challenge the system. 📌 FAT isn’t about ticking boxes. It’s about protecting your project. Because a good FAT means fewer headaches at site. You get it? Now advocate for that FAT #Instrumentation #FAT #Automation #ControlSystems #Engineering #ProjectExecution #Commissioning #ProcessControl #LinkedInEngineering

🚨 Designing For Stress and Emergency. Practical guidelines on how to design time-critical products to prevent errors and drive accuracy ↓ 🚫 People can’t multi-task, especially in very stressful situations. 🤔 Stress disrupts attention, memory, cognition, decision-making. 🤔 Also, it's difficult to prioritize and draw logical conclusions. ✅ In stress, we rely on fast, intuitive judgments — not reasoning. ✅ It leads to instinctive responses based on established habits. ✅ Goal: design flows that support focus and high accuracy. ✅ Start with better default settings, values, presets, actions. ✅ High-priority first: order of actions and buttons matters. ✅ Break complex tasks in a series of simple steps (10s each). ✅ Add built-in safeguards to prevent irreversible errors (Undo). ✅ Shift users to single-tasking: ask for one thing at a time. ✅ More simpler pages might work better than 1 complex page. ✅ Suggest a step-by-step plan of action to follow along. ✅ Design and test flows for emergency response ahead of time. 🚨 Add emergency mode for instant alerts, task assignments. In times of stress and high pressure, some people make decisions hastily, while others get entirely paralyzed. Either way is a likely path to mistakes — often irreversible ones, and often without time for extensive deliberations. Ideally, these decisions would be made way ahead of time — and reused when needed. The critical job that designers must do well is to help people focus. And that means removing distractions first — non-critical notifications and navigation. Asking simple questions and prompting simple actions — one thing at a time. Alert colleagues to get involved with a single button. Initiate an emergency mode with a pre-made chain of actions. Most importantly, set up an annual day to stress test your product and refine emergency responses. To check if fallbacks work as expected. If people know the protocols to follow. And if current UX of the product helps people manage failures and exceptional situations well enough. Emergencies will happen eventually — it’s just a matter of time. With good design, we can help mitigate risk and control damage, and make it hard to make irreversible mistakes. At its heart, that’s what good UX is exceptionally good at. Useful resources: Designing The SOS Emergency System, by Ritik Jayy https://lnkd.in/eT3KkVtK Designing For Crisis, by Eric Meyer https://lnkd.in/e3CwNuV9 Designing For Stressed Out Users (Series), by H Locke https://lnkd.in/ew_65Km4 Designing For Stress (Podcast), by Katie Swindler https://lnkd.in/e3jkPr8K Designing For Edge Cases and Exceptions https://lnkd.in/eeyrpp7m Design For Real Life, by Sara Wachter-Boettcher, Eric Meyer https://dfrlbook.com #ux #design

As a founder travel is often a necessity, not a luxury. Whether it’s meeting investors, expanding into new markets or sourcing the best suppliers, being on the go is part of building a global brand. But here’s the challenge—how do you stay effective when your schedule, environment, and even time zones keep changing? Over the years, I’ve learned that working while traveling isn’t just about staying productive—it’s about staying strategic! Here’s how to make sure travel accelerates your success rather than disrupting it: 1️⃣ Prioritize High-Value Work Over Busyness When you’re traveling, your time is even more limited so you have to focus on what truly moves the needle. Instead of getting caught up in endless emails or daily operations, use travel as a chance to step back and work on the business. 2️⃣ Make Travel a Networking & Expansion Opportunity Every trip is a chance to grow your network. Instead of just attending scheduled events, I always reach out to local entrepreneurs, potential partners and industry leaders in the region I’m visiting. Some of my biggest business opportunities have come from spontaneous chats in a new city! 3️⃣ Protect Your Energy & Mental Clarity The most valuable asset is clarity. Constant travel can drain your decision-making capacity if you’re not careful. I’ve learned to be ruthless about protecting my energy whether that means scheduling in downtime, staying in locations that support my focus or ensuring my travel aligns with my personal rhythm. Success isn’t just about doing more, it’s about doing the right things, in the right state of mind. The ability to run a company while traveling isn’t just about productivity, it’s about using travel to sharpen your vision, make better connections and move your business forward. If you’re a founder who travels often, how do you make sure it works for you rather than against you? Would love to hear your thoughts! 💫 #Entrepreneurship

Most AI initiatives look impressive at the demo. Six months later they're quietly falling apart. Same story every time. The team moved fast. Built something that looked remarkable on a slide. Leadership approved the budget. Then it hit the real organization. Messy data nobody had cleaned. No clear owner when something produced a bad output. No way to measure whether it was actually working. No governance to catch problems before they compounded. The technology worked fine. The foundation was never there. That's not an AI failure. That's what happens when an organization builds the roof before it pours the concrete. Here is what foundations first actually looks like: → Data quality before model selection Unreliable data produces unreliable outputs at scale. This step is unglamorous. It is also the step everything else depends on. Most teams skip it because it doesn't make the demo look better. It determines whether the system survives contact with reality. → Ownership before deployment One question must have a clean answer before anything goes live: Who owns this output when something goes wrong? Not "we'll figure it out." A name. A role. A defined accountability. If that requires a meeting to determine, you are not ready to deploy. → Evaluation before scale Scaling a system you cannot measure makes the problem bigger. Not better. Define what good looks like before launch. Measure it. Monitor it. Adjust before the cost compounds. → Governance before growth Guardrails and accountability structures are not bureaucracy. They are the concrete foundation that holds everything above it up. Organizations that skip this step are not moving fast. They are borrowing time. The companies that win with AI over the long term share one trait. They were willing to look slower at the start. They built what nobody could see before they built what everyone would notice. This is the center of what I call the AI Execution Gap. The distance between an AI initiative that impresses in a boardroom and one that holds up under real conditions inside a real organization. Those are not the same thing. Most budgets are allocated as if they are. One question worth bringing to your leadership team this week: If we removed the AI layer from our current initiative tomorrow, what would remain? If the honest answer is not much, that is where the work starts. Not with a new tool. With the foundation. 💾 Save this before your next AI planning session. ♻️ Repost to give someone in your network a more honest picture of what AI transformation actually requires. Follow Gabriel Gabriel Millien to stay ahead in AI while everyone else plays catch-up. Image Credit: Pascal Bornet

⸻ Excavation Safety Management (Summary) 1. Excavation Permit Before any excavation work begins, a Permit to Dig must be obtained. This ensures: • Identification of underground hazards such as gas, electricity, and telecom lines. • Planning of risk controls and safe work procedures. • Coordination between HSE, site engineers, and relevant authorities. • Proper documentation of all planned activities. Reference: OSHA 29 CFR 1926 Subpart P, ADOSH CoP 11.0 – Permit to Work Systems, Dubai Municipality Safety Code. 2. Site Safety and Risk Control Measures The following measures must be implemented at all excavation sites: • Conduct a site survey using GPR or certified utility maps. • Provide shoring or shielding for excavations deeper than 1.2 m or in unstable soil. • Place excavated material at least 60 cm from the edge. • Provide ladders or ramps every 7.5 m for safe access and egress. • Install barricades and warning signs along all excavation edges. • Ensure adequate ventilation in confined or deep excavations to prevent gas accumulation. • Conduct daily inspections by competent personnel, especially after rain or vibration. • Implement water management systems such as sump pumps or drainage. Reference: OSHA 1926.651 & 1926.652, ADOSH CoP 18.0 – Trenching and Excavation Safety, Trakhees EHS Standards. 3. Heavy Equipment Control When using excavators, hoists, loaders, or similar machinery: • Carry out daily and periodic inspections of all equipment. • Ensure only trained, licensed, and authorized operators are engaged. • Define clear movement zones and avoid operating too close to excavation edges. • Use warning devices including reverse alarms, flashing beacons, and clear signage. • Follow proper shutdown procedures: park safely, turn off engine, engage brakes. • Maintain effective communication between operators and ground crew using radios or hand signals. Reference: OSHA 1926.602, ISO 45001 Clause 8.1, ADOSH CoP 10.0 – Safe Use of Machinery. ⸻ General HSE Compliance Notes • Always use Permit to Work (PTW) systems. • Apply Hierarchy of Controls: Elimination > Substitution > Engineering > Admin > PPE. • Provide Toolbox Talks (TBT) daily before excavation. • Ensure Emergency Response Plan is in place. ⸻ #ExcavationSafety #WorkplaceSafety #ConstructionSafety #HSE #SafetyFirst #OSHAStandards #OSHAD

Some of the most disappointing  presentations I’ve seen were delivered by people everyone thought were “natural speakers.” People who are “naturals” often skip the work because they can (well, they think they can). They’ve gotten away with it before. They’re charming. They’re charismatic. They’re engaging. But that only works up to a point, because audiences are remarkably perceptive. They can tell when you’ve thought about them. They can tell when you’ve rehearsed the hard parts. And they can also tell when you’re thinking up what to say in real time. Lack of preparation is perceived as indifference. On the other end of the spectrum, I’ve seen introverts (people who would never describe themselves as “natural speakers”) deliver extraordinary talks. Ones that the world needed to hear. They rehearsed every word. They practiced every pause. But most importantly: They cared deeply about what the audience needed at that moment. And it showed. The best presenters don’t rely on talent; they carefully consider their audience and craft messages that map to them If you’re a “natural,” take the time to prepare and don’t “wing it." If you’re an introvert, get comfortable speaking because you have information inside you that, when unlocked, changes a lot of lives. #ExecutivePresence #CommunicationSkills #EmotionalIntelligence

No summer internship? No problem! There are still fantastic career-focused activities you can engage in to make summer 2025 professionally productive! Check out these 5 ideas. 1. Conduct informational interviews: THE best way to learn about careers! Find people working in jobs or industries of interest. Connect with them. Request a 30-minute meeting. Ask questions and share your interests. Inquire where you can learn more (resources, other people). Hold more interviews. Stay in touch. 2. Build skills: LinkedIn for Learning is a fabulous resource to do so. Thousands of virtual courses on many topics. The technical ones: Excel, Canva, Adobe, etc. The practical ones: Business communication etiquette, time management. The career planning ones: Salary negotiation, GRE prep, networking 101. 3. Volunteer: Get involved in a local organization who's mission resonates with you. You'll engage in meaningful work, develop skills, meet people (networking!) and build a resume entry. 4. Work a part-time job. You develop amazing transferable skills, secure references for future employment, and earn a salary. Don't dismiss the relevance of part-time summer jobs. Too many students do and many employers wonder why. 5. Self-assess. Take time to research - really research - what your work interests, skills and values are. Many alums say they wish they'd taken the time to do this while in college (I'm one of them!). Most college career offices are open during the summer. Find out what self-assessment tools your office offers and meet with a career advisor. ps - the above list isn't a "pick one" strategy. Many can be simultaneously accomplished. Summer '25 might be your busiest, most professionally enjoyable one yet!