Answer extracted from the Executive Wins Podcast — listen to the full episode below.
How do you plan when everything changes?
Plans must be vague enough to pivot while remaining purposeful in direction—not rigid roadmaps that break when circumstances shift. Krista Rabideau treats strategic plans as speed bumps rather than roadblocks, allowing organizations to adapt constantly and unexpectedly when crises like COVID-19 demand it.
Flexibility Built Into Strategy, Not Against It
When you build a strategic plan, the natural instinct is to lock it in place. But Rabideau rejects this approach entirely. The best plans leave room for pivot without sacrificing the underlying intention or direction the organization is meant to travel.
Think of a speed bump: it slows you down and makes you conscious of your actions, but it doesn't stop you cold. A rigid roadmap, by contrast, is a wall. When unexpected change arrives—a market shift, a pandemic, a talent crisis—organizations built on rigid plans often find themselves unable to move at all. Rabideau's model ensures that strategy remains actionable even when the ground beneath it shifts.
As discussed in this episode of the Executive Wins Podcast, this flexibility became critical during periods of extreme disruption when organizations needed to pivot constantly and respond to circumstances no one had anticipated.
Why Vagueness Serves Purpose
Vagueness in strategy planning sounds counterintuitive—doesn't clarity matter? It does, but purposefulness and clarity are different things. You can be crystal clear about your direction and intention while leaving the specific execution path open.
This is how Rabideau rebuilt Anderson from a boutique, owner-managed firm into an organization that tripled in size over seven years. She was clear about the destination and values, but flexible about the route. When the firm faced unexpected challenges or opportunities, the team could adjust without losing sight of the core mission.
"You can receive success, but you will never feel successful until you're actually yourself."
Krista Rabideau — Managing Director, Anderson. Krista came from an arts background and started her career in concert production and stage management before being encouraged by professor Grant McEwen at Grant MacEwan University to pursue accounting. She later developed expertise as a coach and family enterprise advisor. She joined Anderson seven years ago to rebuild and transform the boutique accounting firm from an owner-managed business into a scaled organization.
The specific mechanisms Rabideau uses to maintain this balance—including her practice of having senior leadership meet every two weeks to discuss strategy—are detailed further in her full conversation on the Executive Wins Podcast, where she also reveals how building a strong foundation enables an organization to scale without losing its identity.
Key takeaways
- Effective plans are vague enough to pivot yet purposeful enough to guide direction—they're constraints, not cages.
- Treat strategy as a speed bump, not a roadblock: it focuses attention without preventing necessary adaptation.
- Flexibility became essential during COVID-19 and other crises when organizations needed to respond to the unexpected without losing their core mission.
- Clear intention and flexible execution are compatible; one doesn't require sacrificing the other.
See also
How does Krista approach hiring and team building at Anderson?
Krista implements a purposeful hiring strategy where every new hire at every level, from junior administration to senior staff, completes a Strengths assessment to ensure cultural fit and role alignment within the organization.
What core mission and values did Krista establish when joining Anderson?
One of Krista's first orders of business was defining the firm's vision and core values. She established building trusted relationships and custom solutions as the foundation for transforming Anderson from an owner-managed boutique to a scaled professional services firm.
What was Krista's biggest career win and how did she describe it?
Krista identified saying yes to Anderson as her biggest career win. She joined the organization as a boutique firm that was historically run like an owner-managed business and transformed it over seven years into a scaled operation that tripled in size.