Are You Ready to Give Up Your Plan?

Too rigid.?

Need flexibility.?

Doesn’t move fast enough.?

Too slow.

While this could be describing me at the gym….(Hey, I try! Or, I could blame it on the flu that's kept me home this week.) It could be someone else describing your business.

Let's be honest. It does sound familiar. I am ready to bet that we have all heard the above at one time or another from a client, prospective client, friend, business partner, or loved one. And...I'd bet that some of us are currently struggling with the issue.?

On the business side of this, I'd bet that we hear this criticism in the context of comparison to some small, not nearly as well-resourced, strategic, or connected company that has made flexibility and speed their obvious competitive edge against anyone—even one person larger.

Further, I am ready to bet that because many of us see these small competitors as not "strategic" or "connected," our view is that the client has gone tactical and doesn't appreciate the value added that we bring. Which, of course, then launches a discussion on money, ROI, cost per whatever, and a scramble to justify ourselves and the scope of our engagement along with appropriate discounts to make the point. N'est pas?

This whole conundrum got me thinking about the world, natural predators, and competitors...Are flexibility and speed a natural function of size and scale?

When we think of slow, we often think of snails and turtles. For the most part, they are small loners. They have little or no connection between their own types as they slowly (and painfully) navigate their environment. Neither is famous for much forethought (unless you count the story of the Tortoise and the Hare). Frankly, I'm hard-pressed to remember any great learning other than steady and slow—a good lesson for a moral tale. But the real lesson, for our time, should be steady and fast—if you see my point.

When I think of fast and agile, the great cats come to mind. Believe it or not, elephants can run and turn quicker than we can. Some whales are true Olympians (and could outswim Michael Phelps). Also, it's posited that some of the big dinosaurs were not as lumbering as we believed, nor were they the loners we projected.

Interestingly, among the true competitive advantages of many of these species is their ability for coordination, synchronization, and harmonized management. In short, these exemplary members of the animal kingdom seem to have a plan.

Don't you? Have a plan, I mean? When you engage clients, you're coming up with a plan based on your heritage, your knowledge, your deep use of resources, and best practices—you get the picture. The truth is that each company has its own narrative.

Ergo, if you have a plan…and size has been shown, by evolution, not to be a natural barrier to speed...you should be quicker to market with better ideas and programs than any small mere tactical player.

Your herd of elephants, your pride of lions, trump the snail any day. And yet...you often get lumped with the snail!

What gives?!?

Maybe the plan is the problem. Check this out:

“In preparing for battle I have always found that plans are useless, but planning is indispensable.” —Dwight D. Eisenhower

Consider this: We plan. We create plans. And, what we create, we hold on to—especially if we consider them "modern" and leading edge. And what we hold on to is hard to change etc., etc. And...there you have it, we're back to the snail. See the point?

• We take process and make it procedure.?
• We take guidelines and make them immutable.?
• We take strategy and make it the law.

How many times have I heard a client say: "I will not be hostage to your way of doing things." Or worse, how many PowerPoints have we created with little arrows and boxes and sub-routines to show clients THE way to work when we have no clue as to their needs or issues? Worse yet, even after we know, we still don't listen.

I wish I had a dollar for every time I've heard the model doesn't work and we have the new model. Who cares about your model?! Focus on the clients' outcome and...the clients' model.

In the Army, I had a commander who taught us that in battle, every plan was merely a platform for change. In fact, I suspect that this little thought drives the behavior of the Lion Pride or herd of elephants. Deeply and forever embedded in their DNA is the notion that nothing is static. No two animals run the same way; no two paths are alike. The wind and the weather are constantly changing. Imagine if they ran every play by the book….

Bottom Line...

Planning is about figuring out how to get from A to Z and knowing that the answer has infinite possibilities. We need to be experts and careful planners. And, we need to know the plans themselves are only of the moment at best.?

Be a planner. Think. Be open, and use the tools and resources at your command. But don't get locked into a plan. Ever see how quickly an elephant turns?

I’d apply this same thought to all relationships and engagements. Don’t get locked in. Be the elephant in the room.??

By the way...my wife and kids say that is me at the gym...and so it goes.

Your thoughts?