Why Plan if You Are Not Going To Follow It?
To start the discussion I offer a couple of quotes:
Everyone has a plan until they get hit in the face- Mike Tyson
The plan is worthless. The act of planning is worth gold- Unknown
In the past I have written these quotes separately BUT recently have been thinking about them together. My conclusion is that they complement each other.
To start any large endeavor one needs to create a plan. This requires a lot of brainstorming and understanding the scope of what you are trying to do. Once you understand the scope you can start thinking about the time it will require to do this scope. That leads you to costs and later quality of what you expect to achieve.
Up to this point, you have a feel for the resources that it will require. BUT that is theoretical and you must truly understand what resources are truly available.
Planning to spend 8 hours that you do not have will not work. Planning to spend a million dollars that you do not have will also doom you to failure. Planning to hire a team of world-class experts within a month might not be doable.
This planning process requires you to understand the risks that will most likely come up. Some you will be able to predict but other risks will remain hidden and unknown. BUT trust me they are there. Mr. Murphy Risk exists.
There are also other things that you might consider: stakeholders, procurement of equipment or/and services, safety, environment, and learning. Lots of tasks to do in these areas to truly understand and improve your chances to succeed.
So now you have a plan. You have captured it in some form and are ready to start.
Ever heard of the bathtub curve? A lot of things fail initially but then they reach a steady state. Eventually towards the end of life things start to fail faster again.
This teaches us that initially, we should expect a lot of risks when starting. We might even quit when a small hit comes our way. BUT persevere and you will reach that steady state.
How do you deal with that knockout risk punch?
When hit by a big knockout punch, it is important to stay down. Pause to understand what the hit was and where it came from. Allow yourself to breathe. Don’t just jump up and think you are ready to continue.
You will be shaken BUT can recover if you believe in yourself and do not allow another big risk to floor you. You must be adaptive (my favorite English word). The only way to be adaptive is to believe in yourself that you can complete your plan.
Lastly, if your plan keeps getting hit by knockout punches then it was not very well thought through. You might want to go back and rethink your strategy.
Since we are talking about punches let me give you a great example to learn from and look forwards to. Stipe Miocic is an American MMA former heavyweight champion. He fought Francis Ngannou the first time and beat him. Ngannou modified his plan and completely obliterated Stipe in their rematch to win the crown.
What will happen in the third fight if it ever happens?
Based on our discussion it looks like the plan for the first fight was effective. The plan for the second fight was not. Plan for the third fight needs to take those two plans into account and come up with possible solutions to change the risk. If it does not then it will end quickly. Ngannou is an incredible fighter and super strong. There is not a lot of room for error.
I am looking forward to that fight to see how well Stipe planned for the challenge. If he and his team are successful then it will not be because of Stipe’s physical prowess BUT the changes in the plan.
My four cents…
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