Luck is good planning, carefully executed, with a "just do it" attitude.
Have you ever had one of those days where it seems like nothing is going right? For some reasons it seems that everything that can go wrong does go wrong, all at once and from out of the blue. I recently had one of those four star, card carrying, absolutely miserable days.
As I tried to make sense of all that went wrong, my mind drifted back to many years ago, when I was just entering this career field. Two phrases that were bantered about in those halcyon days quickly came to mind. The first was my company’s sales motivation slogan at the time, which went “Luck is good planning carefully executed!” The other phrase was the sales motivation slogan of our archrival, which went “All you really have to do is just do it!” Now, both companies were publicly traded Fortune listed companies, and these slogans were bandied about liberally at the time. Like all “young pups” just starting out with a large corporation, one of the jobs was to monitor the competition, which could include anything from how they operated to how they motivated people to make decisions. The more I think back to those days, the more I wish my career advancement could again be determined by simply monitoring high visibility activities. Equally, the more I think about those two phrases – and how important we all thought they were – I realize how the more things change, the more they stay the same.
In reality, everything you do has an element of luck attached to it. Equally, sometimes you need to, as the slogan Nike has made far more famous says, “just do it.” But when those bad days come rumbling around, all I can think is that those two old slogans in combination, with the result being a streamlined interpretation like “Luck is just doing it!”
The fact that when done correctly, adopting either or both slogans can help people focus. Good planning is always essential but not always taken to heart. Planning really needs to take place at all levels in dramatic, bold ways – such as changing the focus of the company – as well as in smaller, more mundane ways, such as scheduling when a task will be performed. Nevertheless, when planning takes place everything goes more smoothly.
Execution often is where a good plan goes awry. If those involved are clueless as to what needs to take place, in proper order, by whom and with what expected result, then success becomes far less likely. And in the execution, the success of the chain is often dependent upon the weakest link, (e.g. if everyone is not on board), than all may fail.
And finally, any action is almost always better than no action. This idea is often difficult to get accepted by organizations where the concern is potential failure and who might get blamed. Still, if no one takes action, execution will not take place and the strategy will never materialize. Action is truly the catalyst to making anything happen.
This is where I drift back to my terrible day. Nothing catastrophic in itself, but put it all together, and it wasn’t pretty. While often, the first thought is to take the moron(s) who made the error(s) and send them to the moon for an extended stay, when the situation is looked at objectively, it always seems to be caused by people with the best of intentions doing what they think is right to help the cause. However, because planning and execution or communication was lacking, everyone counted on luck to pull them through. Unfortunately, lady luck is not always working with you.
In fact, lady luck usually rewards those who are detail oriented and penalizes those who are not. That’s where planning enters the picture. Planning is not just having a direction or goal that you are working toward, but it is considering all the things that might occur that could prevent you from successfully achieving the planned outcome. One of the items that we all seem to forget is that people need to be constantly reminded of what the goal is. As simple as it may seem, one of the things that can prevent the achievement of a goal is forgetting the original goal or plan.
Implementation requires equal attention to detail. Reminding people of what they are expected to do is part good implementation, but letting everyone know what to do if they run into a snag is also important. The last thing you want is for things to grind to a stop because no one knows what to do in an unforeseen situation that requires a decision. Those pesky details – whether in planning or implementation – always seems to make the difference between smoothly implementing a plan or a drama that makes for a terrible day.
One of the most important aspects of planning is to make sure you keep the corporation moving toward a goal. "Just doing it" requires planning to make sure everyone knows to keep moving toward the desired goal by being an integral part of the implementation process.
Finally, the real job of planning, implementing and making sure that lady luck is smiling kindly on your efforts belongs not the employees who may unintentionally throw a wrench in the works from time to time, but to the people in charge – management and supervisory people – who need to remind everyone that luck is “good planning carefully executed” and to attain it, that “all you really have to do is just do it!” PCD&F
Peter Bigelow is president and CEO of IMI (imipcb.com); This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..
