Rainy With a Chance of Change: The Problem With Forecasting

Episode 88 The Problem With Forecasts
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Cristina: [00:00:00] Welcome to Morning Coffee and Mimosas. I'm Christina. And I'm Joe. We are a father-daughter duo. We come here Sunday mornings, but you can come here anytime you please. We banter about life, about business, and we do it over coffee and mimosas.

Good morning, FAJ. 

Joe: That was your way of beating me on that because, and I didn't even, I didn't even rush it this morning. Um, and, and I just have to say that I'm really, it 

Cristina: is not a competition. Why is, why are you. So competitive first thing in the podcast. I 

Joe: don't think I, I didn't, 

Cristina: I wasn't competitive. It is not a competi competition.

Who says good morning first? I was laughing while the song was on, so yeah, I did see your eyes fluttering. It is not a competition. Faj, this is a collaboration. I know. You're right. You don't have to be so cutthroat about it. You are the one 

Joe: who came in, so good morning. You're the one who did it, not me. I was 

Cristina: just, [00:01:00] I was just excited.

That was excitement. I was happy to be here. And well, 

Joe: well, listeners, I have to say something too cuz you know, we've been, this is over two years now and I love it because we did have breakfast this morning. And we're here for hours, and then we go, oh yeah, let's record now. So I, I get all those wonderful quality time with my beautiful daughter, so 

Cristina: it's great.

We, we do, we do kind of like lolly gag. We do a bit, we kind of lolly gag. Dilly dolly. Yeah. We just kind of hang out. You know, the, our furry mascots are here. Roscoe and Tiffany. Yeah. Hopefully they won't bark. They probably will. If you were listening last week, Roscoe made a heck of an entrance. That's right.

Don't use his name. It. Don't use his name. I know his ears perk up and then he, he wants to be a part of the recording. But no, we have really been kind of just mossy around. I'm gonna, how many different ways can I say that? We've been lazy. Lazy this morning. 

Joe: Lolly gag. Oh, it's raining [00:02:00] outside. And we've kind of been that way.

Like where it's just, yeah. Like 

Cristina: we're just kind of like a rainy day lingering here. Yep. But it's been a very nice linger. Yeah. You've been kind of sitting idle for a little bit while I've been both packing things up and 

Joe: I do well sitting idle. I have problems moving. Yeah, yeah. You're not, not, not physically.

It's emotional problems. When I move, I'm physically perfectly able to move, so, 

Cristina: yeah. Well, are you though? I don't know. We'll see. But no, it is a rainy, it's a, a rainy, icky weekend in Wayne, New Jersey where we are coming to. Not quite live, sort of live from Well, we're live now. We're live now. When you're listening, we'll be, you'll be about a day past where we are now, but that's right.

It's still supposed to be raining, which brings up a great, entree into our topic. Yes. Because the weather forecast for this weekend is rain, uh, from start to finish, so we'll see what actually happens. Right, exactly. Yes. So we'll see what actually happens. Yeah. So listeners, that's what we're gonna talk about today, not the rain.[00:03:00] 

Joe: But forecast. Yeah. And not weather forecast, but it applies. 

Cristina: It does 

Joe: apply, doesn't it? It does. It does. You know, but I do have to say before we start that I'm very afraid for the calendar. Because it, it's days are numbered. Oh God. 

Cristina: You're so stealthy with these dad jokes now. I don't even see them coming. I thought you had, I thought you were gonna like drop some truth on us.

Is something brilliant. Something brilliant. It looked like your wheels were turning about to say like drop real wisdom. No. 

Joe: No. Not at all. Right. Well, so forecast, so our topic today is, is really the problem with forecasts and. Making forecasts and planning and planning paralysis kind of, and that's where we're gonna go.

Cristina: It is where we're gonna go. And we think it's interesting because as we were lolly gagging and lingering and wasting time, before we started recording here, we were talking a little bit about this. and you know, we use forecast in [00:04:00] business. Mm-hmm. Myself in a sales function and as a sales leader, we're consistently forecasting what are our deals, the deals that are closed, what is our pipeline going to do?

Mm-hmm. And you know, the best laid plans in the beginning. It's so funny to watch sometimes. Not so funny, right? Mm-hmm. To watch from. The end of the previous year, right? Mm-hmm. To where we are now, uh, a little bit into the second quarter, looking at what we expected out of certain opportunities or deals, how they shift up or shift down or completely disappear at times.

Mm-hmm. So, Our topic today is talking about how, you know, the trouble with forecasting, the trouble with planning and how you can plan and forecast and make progress along the way. Right, 

Joe: right. Yeah. So, um, I, I wanna give you a Leonard Bernstein quote. 

Cristina: Good old Len 

[00:05:00] Christina 

Cristina: didn't, can you tell who he was?

Can you tell the audience who Leonard Bernstein is in case any of them are as famous, unworldly as I am 

Joe: composer? to, at achieve achieve great things, two things are needed, a plan. And not quite enough time. I really like that because, I, here we just said, forecasts are dangerous, but you need a plan.

But it, it is true that time or the lack thereof creates a lot of wonderful things because if you have too much time, you can get around to it any time you want. Right. But a hundred percent, you know, so, so I thought that was, that's a pretty good, you know, way to start off in a little quote, but I wanted to segregate planning, uh, and you were using the word forecast and forecasts are fine and you have to plan in order to achieve the forecast.

but if you're building a house or a plane or a car or something, you know, like that, [00:06:00] obviously that has to be planned out perfectly for it to work, right? So we are talking about planning that involves humans. In other words, you're trying to sell things to a prospect. That's another person that's not a mechanical or chemical reaction that you can predict the outcome.

You know, chemistry is great. You take this chemical and you take this chemical and you get that one or you get a reaction. So we're not talking about that kind of planning. We're talking about the fuzzy planning that goes into planning a marketing campaign or a business, a business plan. 

Cristina: Um, things like a reorganization of a business, 

Joe: correct.

Uh, planning a, a new departmental, you know, structure, uh, things like that. And that's what we're talking about. And why. the key here is yes, a plan, a sketch, an outline of where you want to go is important, but you must take action. [00:07:00] You have to take action and then be adaptable in the flow as this is progressing.

Cristina: And I think it applies. Uh, and this is something that we, I, I know our audience, not everybody is in a, a business scenario. I think a lot are, but this applies to a lot of different things. Um, I'm getting ready for a vacation this coming week, and. As we were talking about forecasts. She 

Joe: takes vacations. I don't, 

Cristina: yeah, I mean, mom wants you to take vacations.

I know, but I don't take vacations. That's because you're miserable on vacation and they cost money. Yeah, you're cheap. You're cheap and miserable on vacation. Maybe 

Joe: I'm just cheap and miserable, period. 

Cristina: You might be, but you are very happy when you're working. And I listen. I am too, but I also really enjoy.

Seeing the world, you're very happy just seeing, you know, your, your, your tv. I [00:08:00] don't know your, no, I think the, your box into the world. I'm not sure. All right. Nobody cares about what I'm, no one cares about this, but anyway. Um, We were talking a little bit about like vacation, right? When you're making your plan.

So you, I, I've been looking at the weather forecast mm-hmm. And it says, guess what? Costa Rica is expecting rain every single day. Um, it's gonna be 88 degrees. And, you know, I've been putting aside the clothes that I'm gonna bring and in my head, planning for what the, the week is gonna need. But guess what?

When I get there, that could be very different. So you've gotta make sure that you're, you've, you're adaptable and you're, you know, to tomorrow when I check the weather, it could be completely different. All of a sudden they could be expecting. I don't think it really gets bad weather there, so it's probably, probably, whatever.

This is a terrible example. Let's just move on. It really is everybody, 

Joe: and everybody is like, oh, she suffers so much. She's going to Costa Rica. You know, 

Cristina: this is my first vacation in a long time. [00:09:00] Okay. Anyway, that was a bad example, but weather forecasts change, so you need to be prepared for whatever may come.

Correct. And I think as we're planning, and you know, I mentioned the, the scenario of, you know, sales planning and sales forecasting and how that changes and how we need to consistently be looking at, oh, like, you know, when we're planning for these things, we're always like, okay, what's the worst case scenario?

The absolute worst case scenario. Well, the worst case scenario is, Everything's lost. Right? Right. But along the way, it's like, okay, if we, you know, if something got delayed in implementation or if a client's budget got cut or if something changed. So I think that's kind of what we're talking about. Until you get into it and until you start executing against your plan, you're not gonna know what's gonna change.

Like for us, until we start actually. Getting into a client implementation, we're not gonna know if what we forecasted is 

Joe: accurate, right? So, so really the idea is to have a plan, like sketch [00:10:00] it out, but don't be tied to the plan as you know, so rigidly and this, and the reason for that is you're involving humans, right?

So people are on the other end of that and that's what messes up the plan. So, you know, the plan is inter literally, Our plans are interfered with by the other party. Mm-hmm. Whoever that other party is. If, uh, if you're planning a departmental restructure, let's say, you've gotta be careful. You can plan it all out.

But is, you know, Susie gonna wanna move over to this other area. Is John gonna wanna right, uh, step up to the plate and manage certain people? Are you able, is your, you know, search function, gonna be able to supply the two new people you want? This is the, this is why as you go through it, you don't be married to the plan.

You use [00:11:00] the plan as a guide and then. Adjust that plan completely 

Cristina: Well, exactly, and I think that's the, the biggest thing is that your plan needs to be, Iterative, like it's, it's a big word for me. It is for most people. It's pretty, pretty simple. But, um, you need to be willing to start. And I think like sometimes, sometimes we can get into paralysis where mm-hmm.

You're trying to map out every single potential scenario. Well, what if this happens? And what if that happens and this is the plan, and now I'm gonna do some research into that. And all of that is good, but if it prevents you from actually taking the first step and figuring out what variables you're not thinking about, or where you should be making the change mm-hmm.

You're never gonna actually get anywhere. Yeah. No, 

Joe: it's so true. I, I can't tell you how many times, you know, in, in business, in all the years I've been in business, that I'll map something out [00:12:00] and start. And it gets screwed up. When I say screwed up may not have been bad. It may actually could be a better outcome than the plan, but things because of that other party not cooperating, you took a different tact and, and very often it, it, it comes out better because, You just didn't plan on that really positive thing.

You thought maybe that wouldn't happen. Right. So whatever that is, you know? 

Cristina: Right. Or, or think about how many times you maybe set a plan because there's, there's some kind of a event or something that's driving it, and then as you get into executing upon the plan, well the whole scenario changes. So Right.

All of that's out the window. Mm-hmm. I mean, I, this is a severe example, but think back to 2020 when we all had a lot of plans. Right. 

Joe: It was a very happy new year. Everything was, you know, literally ho, hopeful and all that we had until 

Cristina: it wasn't exactly. So it was like, you know, we laid our plans out.

Nobody ever could have planned for or predicted what was to [00:13:00] come. And then guess what? We all had to shift and refocus and reset. And those of us that were able to do that faster had a a much better outcome during that time than those that just kind of stood still cuz they were like, whoa, what just happened to me?

Right, right. My plan is blown up now. What? 

Joe: Right. No, you're right. You're right. And so, so that's the, uh, major piece of this is the other party can't predict whoever the other party or parties are, the environment like you just said. Uh, you know, the weather or it's a pandemic or, or something else happens.

it's, it's like that all the time. That's why I, I, I like the idea of a plan to more set. Where do we want to go? I would like to move to your map. This, it's a map, but it's not, it, it's not a detailed map. It's a more of a, of a structure. [00:14:00] You know, what do we wanna accomplish? And then take the action to accomplish that, but be flexible and move that route all the time.

So like a map, you're going from point A to point B, you plan it out, right? Your navigation says Go. 

Cristina: But then there's also some other routes you can take or there's detour into a road closure or something like that. Exactly. Versus Legos, right, where you, you need to know exactly what piece goes where, or you just have a whole bunch of pieces you don't have anything to 

Joe: do with.

I know that's right. In fact, I remember. Um, so date me a little bit, but remember when the GPS system just came about? I don't know it's gonna 

Cristina: date you anymore than we've all dated you at this point. I date me already. 

Joe: Yeah, I know. Cause when, you know, my first horse before the car was invented, no, but I remember, uh, you know, me being, I just 

Cristina: tried to picture you riding a horse.

Joe: I never, no, I'm glad I was born with when there were cars, so remember the GPSs had just came out and I remember. I got, it [00:15:00] was really expensive. One of those Garin units that sat on top of your, literally, I remember your garment. Well, I was driving to Boston. I'm directionally challenged by the way, so I need, that's where I got that from.

I'm really bad with directions and I was thrilled that I was gonna drive to Boston and I, I had a GPS now and here is what happened. So I didn't realize, and I remember they were early Boston from New Jersey was about four hours or something. And it's a one, basically one highway all the way out. I didn't even need the GPS for that, but I'm just thrilled that I got that map on there.

I didn't realize that Boston, they went underground with a lot of their roads go underground. And I will never forget after driving like three and a half hours are almost four hours, and now I'm almost ready to get to the hotel and the road goes down underground. And that GPS said, Signal loss, no signal off.[00:16:00] 

And when I came up, there were like 15 signs that were like left, left, left, left, left straight. Right, right, right, right, right, right. And then by the time the navigation came back up, it said off route. And then I went on a different, and it just kept going underground. Forced it underground. It was horrible.

So, 

Cristina: well, and you c The problem is that we've all stopped using our brain completely. I stopped, like in the past you would've ha looked at your, you would've taken your paper map out. I would've at the map and I would've, I would've been like, okay, when I get out of the tunnel, which I see here is here, I'm gonna go to the right, 

Joe: I'm gonna write and take that road, whatever.

But. No, 

Cristina: cuz and I, you don't need your brain when you've got garment. 

Joe: That's what I said. And, and mom of course said, I think you should have the map and, and write out what your root is. I like, no, I have this garment. I said, I paid 

Cristina: all this good 

Joe: money for this. Correct. So anyway, I have no idea what that has 

Cristina: to do with cleaning.

Sounds like it. It was a tense ride if you guys were together. No we weren't. I was by 

Joe: myself, 

Cristina: so I ended up Did she know that you ended up. [00:17:00] She, you proved her right, or No? 

Joe: I never told her. She'll know now she'll know now. She'll listen. Yeah. Don't let her listen to this episode. Um, but anyway, it's a silly example, but the point, the point of it is because I relied on that so much, it screwed me up.

And yeah, I got there, but it was, I was late, not late for my appointment, but I, I had to pullover, I had to then go back to what roads do I need to take and what roads and, you know, write it all down. The good news is I took action and drove for four hours till I got messed up. But the bad news is, you know, that I, I relied on a device for my plan where I didn't have.

Well, and I, the 

Cristina: other, so I think to me, the moral of what you just told there is that we can really, we can screw ourselves up. We can stress ourselves out and exhaust ourselves by, by getting upset. Mm-hmm. When the plan, when, when things don't go exactly according to plan. Right. Or we can continue to take action [00:18:00] and continue to say, how do we solve that problem?

Okay. The plan has changed. How do I adapt Right. For that? How do I adapt to the new plan? Correct. Or how do I, how do I. You know, rechart the course because. A variable has changed. Yeah. And if you go into everything recognizing that where I start and where I end up, as long as I get to the outcome, it's great, right?

Mm-hmm. But how I get there, it, it may change along the way. And on the path, maybe the outcome is a little different than I thought it was gonna be upfront. Yeah. And that's okay 

Joe: too. Yeah. And, and, and if you do this right, and what I mean is if you plan with the understanding that you're gonna take action quickly, because remember that quote.

You know, a plan like an old Lenny lack of time. Yes. Um, and take action quickly and adjust quickly. I have had many plans that exceeded anything that I ever thought as a benefit, because it was a sketched out plan with [00:19:00] action, with adjustment right away, and not ringing my hands saying the plan is blowing up.

Well, guess what I, I planned, you know, let's say to get to this benefit and I've gotten five times the benefits, let it blow up. Yeah. But I've seen people that plan so much and literally can't start because they're trying to, come up with a contingency for every single potential difficulty or obstacle.

Exactly. And you can't, you can't do that, you know? That 

Cristina: is the biggest thing that I have said. Uh, frustrates me and I find absolutely exhausting. And there's cer certain people, certain situations where you've probably experienced this, where it's like, well, what if this, well, what if that? Well, what if that, and I'm, I'm like, I only have the capacity to worry about the problems that are right in front of me.

You're right. And I'm not saying [00:20:00] I have blinders on. Like I get it that other things can happen. But we don't need to waste energy solving that problem until it's actually a problem. You're right. That's right. And I have that, that's something that I, I feel like I get very impatient and bored from, because I don't wanna invent problems.

No. There are plenty of problems and plenty of challenges that we have right in front of us mm-hmm. To solve. Mm-hmm. I don't wanna dream up problems that could be coming in the future. That's right. So, But a lot of it, you know, it's not always easy to do that. Sometimes it's easy to be like, oh, well this is, well what if, what if, what if?

Yeah. Right. But it's, it's such a waste of your precious energy. Mm-hmm. Right. To be solving for a problem that has not even that, that may never even come, 

Joe: that happened to me. Do you know, I thought the dryer was shrinking all my clothes. It turned out it was the refrigerator the entire time.

This whole time I [00:21:00] blamed the dryer. If only if I had just had a padlock on the refrigerator, I never would've had that problem. 

Cristina: In case the audience didn't know that was another dad joke, that he just snuck in there. How are we? We can't even have a serious conversation anymore, dad. No. Can't we can't even land a point because you've just got a dad joke to take us off track and you No, it was right on track.

It was on, it was, yeah. It was an accurate one actually for you. 

Joe: Very surprising that that happened. 

Cristina: That's exactly why you've needed to buy new clothes. No problem with your dryer at all. 

Joe: No dryer's working perfectly fine. The clothes are staying the same size as they were. But notice I didn't blame myself.

I blame the refrigerator. 

Cristina: That's true. Yeah. That's correct. That's true. That's correct. There is something to be said for taking accountability, but there really is. We'll have to cover that in another podcast episode. I 

Joe: think that's gonna be another one. Yeah, I think that's gonna be, uh, I, I think that's gonna, we're gonna get.

Um, you know, you've been asking [00:22:00] every week for topic ideas from our listeners. I think we're, we're gonna get that topic idea from multiple listeners. 

Cristina: I sure hope so. Yeah, please, people, please, 

Joe: yes. So, I want to, I want to close with something because it better 

Cristina: not be another dad joke. It's not a dad joke, I promise.

Because our listeners deserve better, dad. They deserve better than just a, a running episode of dad jokes. 

Joe: Maybe I should start my own podcast with dead 

Cristina: jokes. Go for it. Let's, yeah, let's see. Let's see what happens. Let's see how that goes. Don't quit my dick jokes. I'll tell you I'm not listening. 

Joe: Okay. Um, no, the, and so related to this is a phrase that I hear a lot I talk to people and we're planning things out, we're this or that, and I hear the phrase, You know, ne in, in, in all my years, or never in my lifetime, you know, in all my years that we've never been able to accomplish that or this, or [00:23:00] whatever that is.

I really dislike that phrase because if you think about, no matter how old we are, it's a, it's a blink. It's not even a blink in the eye. It's a, it's a little blip in the radar. It's a hundredth of a microsecond in the world's. You know, experiences and, and I really, you know, when I was younger and somebody was 60 years old and said, in my lifetime, it sounds impressive, right?

Because wow, he or she is going back 40 or 50 

Cristina: years. I've said that about you actually before. Oh really? You were used to being impressed. I've been impressed. I used 

Joe: to be. Yeah, yeah. No, not anymore. So, yeah. Okay. So I may have X number of years more than you. Of experiences, but that doesn't mean that nothing that has ever happened in that time can never happen, and most of us don't go back far enough in time.

That's why, you [00:24:00] know, it's really sad that people don't study history because you kind of see things happen. So I, I discount that a lot when I hear, you know, colleagues or other people say. Well, I've been here for x number of years and you know, we've never been able to do that. Or that's never, well, that does, that's not valid.

I've, there's new people here now. There's new technology here now. Yeah, there's new everything. Well, and I, 

Cristina: I've seen that even with like weather patterns and things like that where, oh yeah, it'll be a really warm day in December and I'm, and I'm like, Th this is crazy. I've never, I've never seen that before.

And then you watch the news and they're like, the last time it was this hot in December was 1945. And I'm like, oh. So it was this hot anymore. It's 

Joe: just a, you know, none of my friends remember 1945. Yeah. I wasn't here for that. Right. No, exactly. Exactly. Like there's a, evidently the, it was a massive, like one of the worst blizzards ever in 1888.

In, in, and it was like [00:25:00] late, I think it was in How, how did you handle that? Uh, well, I was a little young for shoveling, but my dad helped me. No kidding.

You know, stuff like that. So anyway, I just wanted to throw that in. Is that, try to avoid that or? Well try and think it, not that you were doing it, but you may have a senior person, like say, well, I don't know Christina. I don't, I've never, I haven't. In all the years I've been here or in all my years. Yeah.

Nick's the limiting beliefs. Yeah, that's, you should dis whether you can tell, don't get fired. I mean, don't tell your boss that he or she 

Cristina: is fucking crap. Be like, listen, you may be old but you're not really old in the 

Joe: scheme of things. Not enough to say that that can't ever happen. Uh, but you should discount those kind of things because that does not necessarily, that's not a valid.

Cristina: It's not a research backed, uh, no explanation for no. How Some, well, and you, you don't wanna assume something can't happen just because in that you've never seen it. Individual's, yeah. Time with an organization or lifetime, et cetera, that it's not [00:26:00] happened. 

Joe: I mean, ice cream is supposed to be bad for you, but I've had it re all my life and I'm 

Cristina: still here.

I was like, is that a dad joke or is this just a no, your opinion, 

Joe: that comment cuz people say you should eat ice cream. It's not good for you, but. My, my experience in my lifetime, oh, I've had good experiences with what I'm trying to say is that doesn't make it valid either, 

Cristina: but you just, you just wanted to tell, you have ice cream on the brain, don't you?

I always have ice cream 

Joe: on the brain. So anyway, that was very good 

Cristina: in our opinion. So it was very good, I guess. I think so. So we'll see. Hopefully, hopefully, listeners let us know what you think. Do you agree? I know. Um, we would love to hear from you as always. If you have an idea for an episode, please reach out to us.

You can hit us on social media. You can. Get us any, you know, send us a smoke signal. But if you liked what you heard, like, subscribe, share with a friend, 

Joe: follow, we have to say that follow on. Please follow, follow on, on whatever you're listening on and give us a review [00:27:00] too. 

Cristina: Yeah, we really appreciate, we've gotten a bunch of them.

We star reviews and um, we are doing a. Giveaway where if you write us a five star review, screenshot it, direct, message it to us either on LinkedIn, uh, Instagram, Facebook, whatever you you like to use. If you send us that with your address, we will send you a morning coffee mimosa mug. That is so comfortable in the hand and really nice to drink from so, and dishwasher safe and dishwasher safe.

So please, it comes in a really nice little box. Mm-hmm. And, uh, we would really appreciate the reviews. They help our content to get promoted and so that other people will know we exist, um, and, you know, be able to enjoy the content if it's something that they deem as for 

Joe: them. Wonderful. Very good. I'm gonna write a review.

You already did.

All right. Thank you everybody. Thanks everybody. Wherever you are, whatever your [00:28:00] story. Thanks for spending time with us this morning. Now go and make a difference in your world.

Cristina: Don't even think about Dan. No, I'm gonna say no. No. I'm gonna make the shower 

Joe: is fun. Until you get soap and pounds. Then it's a soap opera. 

Cristina: I wish Roscoe started barking. He was so good. He's been so good. Have a great week, everybody. Yeah. Bye-Bye everybody.