Goals and objectives, business plans, and strategies are
always the first recommendation of any business guru or experienced business
management person. So why do these
recommendations always fail? Dan
Waldschmidt, Edgy Conversations says “When you don’t act with purpose you end
up doing something stupid.” He believes
the intention is missing. (http://www.businessinsider.com/why-your-business-plans-fail-2013-2)
And he’s not alone. I
have been an entrepreneur and businessman.
I have also worked in the nonprofit realm as an HR Manager for 17
years. I have seen every kind of plan
from business plans to strategic plans with marketing plans, staffing plans,
and intervention plans in-between. More
often than not, I confess, the plans get scrapped as soon as they are produced
(oh, the wasted time, you have no idea – or maybe you do know how much time is
wasted on these “strategic plans”). Plans
are like budgets: necessary fiction.
Necessary only because they are often “required” by some entity that
controls money or time. If however, you
really have passion to do some thing – a business or a creation of your choice,
skip the formal plans and play on the passion.
You have to cycle through constantly.
You must refresh your passion and rethink everything every day you work
on it. Instead of budgeting, create a
cash flow spreadsheet that contains real income and expenses, and track
it. It’s better than any budget because
it is “what is so”. Every day has next
actions. Every day has imagination about
what it’s like playing and winning the game.
Every day is a review of your passion.
I know this all sounds counterintuitive. And I am not advocating any endeavor which
ignores critical or key documentation or financial management. I am just advocating taking the drudgery of
planning, strategic planning, and such nonsense out of the equation. If you have to put those elements in , figure
out how to have that happen without you investing your passion time in it. Be a maverick; hire someone else to do the
dreaded business plans. They are all
phony creations anyway – but sometimes they are “necessary fiction” for banks
and investment firms to approve loans and financing.
You, yourself? You
are following your passion, doing what you want to do. And if you want to win the game, keep cycling
on the road of passion for what you want to do.
Get off the hamster wheel (budgets, plans, strategies that measure the
past) and get on the cycle where the road goes to the uncertain future and
enjoy the ride as an adventure. That
way, playing the game (the journey) makes it worthwhile to keep cycling.
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