SUCCESS 101
Hint: Try an experiment
The world we live in is vastly different from the world we think we live in. — Nassim Nicholas Taleb
I have written about how we humans FAIL to solve our problems by relying too much on untested theories and beliefs and assumptions. So I should probably say something about how we can all SUCCEED more. Otherwise I’ll be accused of being too negative!
Big strategy … Small(er) results
At most business schools, the “strategy” gurus have the biggest class size and the most lucrative consulting practices. For most mortals, there is something magical and mysterious about strategy, kind of like the alchemy of turning a struggling business into the next Apple or Tesla. Who wouldn’t want to discover that secret sauce?
If you delve into the archives of most businesses, I guarantee you’ll find at least one “strategic planning” document. It will summarize a series of meetings attended by the senior leadership team and perhaps facilitated by one of those strategy professors from the B-school mentioned above. It will include financial spread sheets, market and competitor studies, SWOT analyses and other exhibits, culminating in a “Strategic Plan” laying out a road map to success. It will be a thing of beauty, crafted by the best design pros, printed on heavy stock, nicely bound with the company logo and the names of the contributors prominently displayed. And … it will be largely ignored and forgotten until someone at the next strategic planning conference says “We should probably look at that last strategic plan!”
Why does this happen?
The human brain is a marvel of biological engineering that provides an elegant solution to the strategic challenge of thriving and surviving across countless generations and environments. That much power and flexibility and intelligence packed into a few pounds of protoplasm makes the AI and quantum computing engineers green with envy. And it should.
Most of our brain is devoted to REACTING to immediate threats and opportunities. Reacting is a smart strategy for dealing with challenges that are relatively simple and immediate. We get into trouble when we apply a reacting strategy (often based on our favorite theories and beliefs and assumptions) to a complex problem or one farther out on the time horizon. Generally we tend to wait and let problems ripen and get closer until they hit our reaction threshold, by which time our success options may have narrowed alarmingly (think: emerging national security threats, loss of economic competitiveness, viral pandemics, climate disruption etc.).
How can we all be more proactive with more problem-solving power?
Building good success habits
If you have no data, you’re just another person with an opinion. — W. Edward Deming
The notion of establishing beneficial habits is receiving a lot of attention lately. Rather than face every situation as a one-off requiring large investments of energy in thinking and deciding and acting, it is more economical to build and refine a portfolio of established routines/habits (“standard operating procedures”) that can be activated quickly and easily as needed. Good advice.
Given our tendency to react to imminent threats with a generic set of assumptions and beliefs, building up a strong habit of situation-specific planning and experimentation/learning (like SCIENTISTS use) can significantly increase our chances of personal and professional success. Fortunately, there is a ready made template for doing just that!
You may have heard about a 4-step process for getting things done and improving results known as Plan-Do-Check-Adjust (PDCA). It is a clear learnable template for successful action and it works really well and … (wait for it) … few people use it. There are two main reasons for neglecting this winning methodology:
It requires the investment of more mental energy (ouch!) than just acting/reacting based on our default beliefs and opinions
Each step in the PDCA cycle requires a slightly different brain and temperament, so we will all stumble on at least one of the steps and fail to complete the process (this is where brain/talent-diverse teams provide a competitive advantage)
Let’s take a closer look at each step:
I. PLANNING
Ready … Fire … Aim!
Some people are very comfortable DOING things. They are action oriented, they like to throw themselves into things and stay busy. Taking action is a critical success strategy. Beyond a certain point, however, some people are compromised by a tendency to be impulsive, to leap before they look/think/plan, to take action (e.g. spending money, investing, talking, starting a business etc.) with little thought to the potential impact/results of their actions.
These ACTORS will benefit from restraining their action orientation long enough to engage in a structured planning process with a high dosage of due diligence (“kicking the tires”): data gathering, SWOT analysis, and considering the costs/benefits of a range of scenarios before committing to a particular plan.
Building a stronger PLANNING HABIT will pay large dividends by creating focus and a path to goal
EXAMPLE: a high-energy entrepreneur launches a business without doing the hard (“boring” for them) work of crafting a detailed business plan with its multiple critical components (market research, financials, staffing, communications etc.) and fails fast/early
II. DOING
Analysis Paralysis
While data gathering, thinking and planning are key success strategies, there comes a point where one needs to commit, lace up one’s travelin’ shoes, and get going! Some people are very good at illuminating the risks and uncertainties inherent in any plan. They are always ready to make an argument against action, to prescribe caution and delay, and to form another committee to study the issue (which makes them very valuable during the planning phase but a potential obstacle to fast-enough execution). These ANALYZERS (and sometimes cynics) will benefit from clear project timelines with a bright transition point between the planning and action stages (“OK, we’re done planning. Now it’s time to rock’n’roll!”).
Building a stronger DOING HABIT will pay large dividends by accelerating your speed to goal
EXAMPLE: a tech team with strong analytical talents and a tendency toward perfectionism neglects the need for speed (“first to market”) for a successful product launch and gets crushed by a nimbler rival
III. CHECKING/ADJUSTING
What? Me Worry?
Back in the day (c. 1970), American businesses engaged in a torrid love affair with the “Ten Year Plan”. Flush with their massive success in the post-WWII period (when the U.S. owned >50% of the entire world’s manufacturing capacity!), business leaders had towering amounts of self-confidence in their ability to make good plans and decisions. Once the often multi-volume strategic plans were completed and bound between hard covers, they were implemented with barely a look back to see if the assumptions still held and the execution was producing the intended results.
While the 10 year plan has gone the way of the Edsel and the Hula Hoop, many leaders still become so enamored of their plans that they fail to check to see how the plan is holding up over time and in practice. To question the plan is often viewed as questioning the wisdom of the planner, with a predictable emotional pushback. Given that we are all operating in a complex, uncertain and changing environment, it is no insult to a leader’s intelligence to build in check points in any project to simply ask
How are we doing? (define any gaps between intended and actual results)
What have we learned from our action experiment up to this point? Do we need more information/data?
What adjustments do we need to make to our plan to close the gap(s) in #1?
This kind of ongoing scrutiny, curiosity, experimentation and continuous learning/adaptation (aka “research”) is the hallmark of real leadership and operational intelligence. Adopting a “scientific” approach to any important initiative with serial experiments that can test our assumptions and theories, catch errors and refine planning will dramatically increase the probability of success. It can also help the ANALYZERS above to feel safer moving from Planning to Doing because it is “just” an experiment with a near-term opportunity to pause and check the results. Real-life examples of checking/adjusting include post-mortems and M&M (morbidity and mortality) conferences in medicine, after-action reviews in the military, and post-game video analysis in sports.
Building a stronger CHECKING/ADJUSTING HABIT will pay large dividends by preventing a wide range of fatal errors
EXAMPLE: a manufacturing team creates a blueprint for producing #X widgets in 24 months, and fails to recognize that at month 6, several key elements of the plan are incorrect in their current form; at the 12 month point when fatal errors begin to appear, it is too late to reconfigure the project plan/timeline
Genetic code for success: PDCAPDCAPDCA …
If the (CHECK) data from your (DO) action experiment indicates the need for a (ADJUST) change to the PLAN (Hint: it probably will!), that will kick off the next PDCA cycle that iterates throughout the project’s lifecycle until completion. This serial discovery/adjustment process allows for multiple experiments (“reality checks”) with their rich opportunity to gather data, learn from experience and find out how things really work. It’s how scientists make real and substantial progress, and we can all succeed more by doing the same!
Excellent article that highlights the fatal flaw of strategic planning, i.e., the execution of the plan! Treating a plan as a living, breathing tool that is evaluated and adjusted regularly, and tied to the then current reality of the business, is critical. Thanks for these insights.