No doubt you remember this Robert Burns from your English Lit class:
The best laid schemes o’ Mice an’ Men,Gang aft agley.An’ lea’e us nought but grief an’ pain,For promis’d joy!
Or, in plain English, “The best laid plans.”
Failing with the best-planned strategies
On the battle fields and the football fields, it’s acknowledged all your best-planned strategies go out the window the moment the other team shows up with their strategy, which reveals the flaws in yours. In business however, the mantra is “Failure to Plan is Planning to Fail.” Success is achieved through micro-planning projects down to the smallest detail.
And yet to management’s consternation, the plans fail to meet their objective on time or on budget. Or even see their way through to completion.
Planning doesn’t control the future
In business, the issue is not always the other side showing up. Very often it’s about reality showing up. In his blog “The Myth of Failure to Plan,” Dr. Gleb Tsipursky debunks the idea that the pathway to success is assured with thorough planning. Planning essentially has an inherent, unavoidable flaw: plans do not control the future.
Key Point: Planning can never give you the complete picture of eventualities—the “what-will-happen” once the game gets underway.
Plan for failure
Dr. Tsipursky explains why planning for failure is essential for success. As a best-selling author, lecturer, and business consultant, he has appeared in over 750 articles and interviews numerous publications. Publications include Fast Company, Scientific American and Psychology Today, among others. A former professor at Ohio State University, he has strong research and teaching experience in neuroscience and behavioral economics. His focus is on helping management avoid making disastrous decisions through cognitive biases.
Read his blog at: https://seapointcenter.com/myth-of-failing-to-plan/
