Commercial success, that which delivers more than a wage, comes from only two places:
-
- Critical thinking
- The ability and willingness to be a bit different, experiment and embrace risk.
Why is it then that the web is full of ‘7 point plans to….’ Templates designed to remove the need to think, and assuring us that if we follow the plan, all will be well.
I have been as guilty as most, reducing some of what I publish on this blog to lists of sequential actions. This sort of headline increases readership of a post significantly, people want packaged solutions that promise an answer to a complex problem but removes the need to think.
I have been as seduced as anyone by the vanity of page views.
The important part of any plan, from the most complex to the mundane list of what you must do today is that it is the result of critical thought.
What is important vs urgent?
Is this the best use of that absolutely finite resource: Your time?
How will this impact on those around me?
General Eisenhower made the observation that ‘plans are worthless, but planning is everything‘. Eisenhower further noted that emergencies were unexpected, and therefore planning for them was impossible.
Noted philosopher Michael Tyson’s contribution is perhaps the best known “everyone has a plan until they get hit in the mouth”.
Besides, without a plan, and associated goals, how will you ever know how you are performing?
The act of planning should be an act of critical and creative thinking, not filling in a formulaic set of generic questions.
Header credit: Scott Adams with an early question from Dilbert.
Plans are not static documents otherwise they would be continually out of date. They should be regularly reviewed, updated, and tested in fact. IN fact if they are not they are useless.