When Life Changes the Menu: How to adapt when plans change
FROM MY TABLE™
On surrender, improvisation, and the beauty of the unexpected.
"A series of reflections on wine, culture, hospitality, creativity and the art of gathering"
Lately, life has been reminding me of something I probably already knew:
Things don't always go as planned.
You can plan.
Put in the time.
The money.
The resources.
The thought.
The love.
And then life looks at your beautifully detailed plan and says…
Hmm. No.
The white roses you planned for are unavailable.
The wine you ordered is stuck at customs.
The surprise chef misses his connection from Paris.
The cheese you were counting on doesn't make it into the country.
The location is suddenly double-booked.
Your musician has an accident.
And the list goes on.
So… now what?
Do we stop?
Fall apart?
Decide the whole thing is ruined?
Or do we step aside for a moment…
Take a breath…
And ask:
What can we do with what we have?
Because perhaps that's where the real magic happens.
Not when everything is perfect.
But when it isn't.
The Art of the Pivot: How to Adapt When Plans Change
Hospitality has taught me a lot about this.
Plans change.
Suppliers don't arrive.
Guests change their minds.
Weather shifts.
People get delayed.
Something breaks five minutes before everyone arrives.
And somehow, the show still has to go on.
Learning how to adapt when plans change is part of the art of gathering — knowing when to pause, look at what you have, and allow a different possibility to emerge.
I recently came across Prince Sanders' reflection, The Importance of Pivoting in Hospitality Leadership, in which he writes about the importance of responding quickly when unexpected obstacles arise — and recognizing when a situation requires more than a small adjustment. Sometimes, the entire approach needs to change.
That idea stayed with me.
Because I think creativity works in much the same way.
I'm grateful for a mind that can still move.
For creative energy.
For the ability to improvise, alchemize and create.
To walk into a kitchen and say:
“Okay… let's see what we can make.”
To take what is available and turn it into something that still feels like us.
Recently, we found ourselves in exactly that kind of situation.
A little emergency.
Too many pieces of the original plan were suddenly missing.
And we had a decision to make — quickly.
Do we try to hold the original experience together by force?
Or do we step back, look at what we actually have, and create something completely different?
Come with us.
The original plan was already beginning to unravel.
Some of our guests decided they could no longer join us.
Others were unsure.
And suddenly, the beautiful experience we had imagined was looking very different from the one we were about to deliver.
But here's the thing about gathering people:
You can change the menu.
You can change the flowers.
You can change the location.
You can even change the entire plan.
What matters is what you create when everyone arrives.
I also came across a thoughtful reflection from Lead Hospitality on what it calls small disappointments in hotel leadership — and how moments of limitation can become opportunities for resourcefulness, transparency and innovation. One question in particular stayed with me:
What can we do with what we have?
That question felt very familiar.
So we made a call.
Come with us.
And somehow, we ended up at Pikidi, by Lake Victoria.
And then there was another little problem.
Some of our guests didn't have swimwear.
Fortunately, I did.
I happily pulled out pieces from Ogumbo & Okubo, our swimwear line created from recycled marine waste — pieces that are also available at Pikidi.
And just like that, another little problem became part of the experience.
Suddenly, we were in the water.
The lake.
The breeze.
Boat rides.
Swimwear.
A picnic by the water.
Cold rosé.
Fresh fish.
Music.
Laughter.
People being people.
What had started as an emergency was beginning to feel like exactly where we were supposed to be.
No elaborate production.
No need to pretend that everything had gone according to plan.
We were simply there.
And somewhere along the way, the mood changed.
The disappointment disappeared.
People relaxed.
We laughed more.
We stayed longer.
We ate.
We drank.
We swam.
We took boats out onto the lake.
We let the afternoon unfold.
Then came the table.
As the afternoon gave way to evening, we found ourselves sitting down to dinner.
Fish.
Wine.
Conversation.
The last light of the day.
And I remember looking around and thinking:
Wait.
This wasn't the plan.
But look at what we made.
Maybe that is the beauty of creating an experience.
You don't always know what the final memory will be when you begin.
You create the setting.
You bring the people together.
You give them something to taste, hear, see, feel.
And then you allow the moment to become what it is.
That's the part of hospitality I find so beautiful.
The experience isn't only the menu, the flowers, the location or the production.
It's the feeling people leave with.
It's the story they tell afterwards.
It's the “remember when…”
And sometimes, the best “remember when” begins with something going completely wrong.
And then there was the music.
We were graced by the presence of a traditional nyatiti musician, bringing the unmistakable sound of the eight-stringed lyre into our lakeside gathering.
The nyatiti carries a deep history within Luo culture — music that has travelled through generations, carrying stories, memory, rhythm and identity.
There was something particularly beautiful about hearing it there, by the lake, surrounded by water, food, wine and people simply being present.
It reminded me that an experience does not become meaningful because we have planned every detail.
Sometimes, it is the unexpected element — the sound, the person, the moment — that gives the gathering its soul.
The beauty of alchemy
That, to me, is the beauty of alchemy.
Not turning nothing into something.
But taking what we have — even when it is incomplete, inconvenient or completely unexpected — and seeing what else it can become.
I think we sometimes put too much pressure on ourselves to make everything perfect.
The perfect table.
The perfect setting.
The perfect guest list.
The perfect photograph.
The perfect evening.
I have come to discover that perfection isn't the point.
Perhaps the point is to be present enough to notice when something else is trying to happen.
The lake wasn't part of the original plan.
Neither was the swimwear.
Neither were the boat rides.
Neither was that particular sunset.
Yet somehow, they became the story.
And that is what gathering is really about.
Not controlling every detail.
But creating enough space for something memorable to emerge.
So… now what?
I thought I would be somewhere else today, working on another project.
But I'm still here.
So… now what?
We pivot.
We adapt.
We create.
We make do.
We improvise.
We release the version we thought we needed.
And sometimes, right in the middle of everything that didn't go according to plan…
we make the memory we couldn't have planned for.
October is here.
From My Table Notes
📍 Written from: Pikidi, Lake Victoria, Kenya
🍷 In My Glass: The Beach House Rosé — Pinotage, Western Cape, South Africa
🎵 Soundtrack: Kanungo Eteko — Otieno Aloka
👗 Dress Code: Ogumbo & Okubo Swimwear.
🕯 On the Table: A lakeside picnic. Boat rides. Something delicious from the kitchen. Good people. Cold rosé. And a sunset we never planned for.
🌙 Mood: Lakeside.
💭 Reflection: Perhaps the magic isn't in controlling what happens next, but in releasing our grip long enough to discover what life has waiting for us.
Inspired By
Prince Sanders, Hospitality Net — The Importance of Pivoting in Hospitality LeadershipA reflection on responding quickly when unexpected obstacles require hospitality leaders to rethink the original plan. Read the reflection on Hospitality Net
Albert Barra, Lead Hospitality — Small Disappointments in Hotel LeadershipA hospitality perspective on turning limitations into opportunities for ingenuity, transparency and stronger service culture. Read the reflection on Lead Hospitality
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“Perhaps the art of gathering is knowing when to flow, not force —allowing the moment to unfold, and discovering what it becomes.”
Sip with Wisdom. Live with Wonder.
—
Liz Ogumbo,
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