If you are reading this in North America, chances are you’ve been buffeted by some unusually forceful weather in recent weeks and months. Early snows, flooding rains, overflowing rivers, and blizzard-blocked highways – extreme weather seems to have become the norm this winter.

It seems too much at times.  How much can we be expected to stand, after all?

The answer to that question: As much as we are given.  Bad weather, after all, is something that happens, something we have to expect.  Not only are we unable to prevent it, often we can’t even get out of its way when we see it coming.

We can’t prevent it, but we can prepare for it.

Weather isn’t limited to the sky.  An analogous phenomenon takes place in all of our organizations.  Reorganizations, downsizings, mergers, changes of leadership – these are the blizzards and floods of the business world.  We can’t always see them coming, and we can’t accurately predict the severity of their effects on us and those around us.

It doesn’t help to complain.  Organizational change is as inevitable as winter.  We can’t prevent workplace “’storms.” But we can prepare.

Consider your value to the organization.  If resources become limited, are you part of the emergency response team, or are you more likely to be washed away?  And what about your flexibility?  If the road you are on is blocked with organizational snow, are you responsive enough to take another route?

One way to shore up against corporate bad weather is to make your influence felt high in the organization before rough times reach you.  Communicate regularly with the supervisors of the people you train.  Tell them what you’re doing and how students are responding.  Ask them for input.  Suggest programs they may not have considered. Give them ideas to better prepare their participants to get the most out of the training.  Work with them to develop application contracts and action plans with their participants so that the managers gain real value in their own minds every time they send someone to your training programs.

Management-level people, in hard times, are often forced to think strictly in terms of dollars.  Have you calculated the value of the training you provide, in terms of increased productivity, reduced turnover, or lowered rates of injury?  These are only three of a dozen metrics that can be used to demonstrate real value.  Learn how to have a pain conversation with managers.  Often they are so busy they don’t focus either on the real pains that are plaguing their departments – or the very real costs attached to those pains.  Help them focus on that and suddenly training becomes an investment with a measurable return! Don’t wait until bad weather to build that dike.  Oftentimes, if trainers aren’t prepared to prove it, their services are considered an expense, not as asset.

Usually, we get a brief warning before a change in the corporate winds.  Pay attention, and be prepared to act. If your organization’s new mission statement stresses quality, make sure you’re doing the same, stressing it both in the classroom and in your own performance.

If the newspaper says your company is gaining notoriety for slow delivery, work proactively to do what you can with training to alleviate that issue before someone comes down from upstairs to ask for your help.  Make sure you’re one step ahead and do what you can to be certain people know it.

You can’t change the “weather.” But you can stay alert and prepared.  And when things get rough, remember, right after winter comes spring.