Does having back-up plans mean that you plan to fail?

I once heard an investor saying: “I wouldn’t invest in anyone with a backup plan because they are already expecting to fail, and will therefore not be as motivated to succeed”. The reality is that many people think this way. They create strategies with one goal in mind, without accounting for uncertainty. If you to want fall flat on your face and fail hard, approach business and business strategy with this mentality.

I don’t not believe many of us ever set up goals with hopes to fail. Who likes failure?

As I have previously mentioned in one of my LinkedIn Newsletters, things rarely go according to plan. A good strategist accounts for uncertainty and has back-up plans for when things don’t work out. You need to be flexible because there are so many independent variables that affect business operations that we cannot control. Having a backup plan or several back-up plans does not mean you are a bad leader or that you will commit less to the initial plan. No, having backup plans, while fully focusing on the initial plan and knowing when it’s time to switch between the plans makes you a fantastic leader and an even greater strategist. This is risk-mitigation in its purest form.

In my life, people often wonder how I bounce back relatively fast after encountering failure. I always tell them; "I have Plan A, B, C, and D...and sometimes even E". That may sound crazy. But no, I have 2 back-up plans for my initial plans, and back-up plans for those back-up plans. What if I switched to Plan B and B didn’t work out? Then I jump to Plan C. Or suppose I considered Plan C when Plan B didn’t work out, but then learned that Plan C would not be feasible because variables and conditions have unexpectedly changed from my initial calculations; in this case, I will jump to plan D. Just because I create plans to mitigate risks that I could encounter, it does not make me less focused on achieving my initial objective(s). I create back-up plans, put them on the side, and focus on my Plan A objective(s). While pursuing Plan A, I don’t spend time thinking about the backup plans. Those are worst-case scenarios; I only think of them when my control metrics trigger them. By this I mean to say that all my plans have metrics, which I use to both measure and control my progress towards my goal. The control metric trigger would be something like “if by month 12, I do not reach X in sales and signed contracts with Y company, then I need to switch to Plan B”. In the 12 months, I am not thinking about Plan B. But if at the end of those 12 months, I sit down to analyze my metrics, and I see that the conditions match my initial worst-case predictions – then I will switch to Plan B. Plan B could be “Leveraging on the connections and knowledge acquired in the past 12 months: Target company X and Z, and secure contract of K sales within 6 months”.

If I am hiring a contractor for a project and he/she/they cannot tell me the potential risks in completing the project as well as their proposed plans for addressing these risks, best believe I will respectfully show them the door.

In short, it’s good to have backup plans as a strategist. And this applies to anyone, but especially for those in leadership positions.

Twama Nambili