Dress for the game

A lesson learned from high school gym class...

The place was Mr. Wittner's gym class and we were learning basketball. A bunch of headstrong high school flunkies, he explained to us that if we ever wanted to succeed at a pick-up ball game, we should at the very least show up dressed correctly. If you're playing behind the school (inner city) on a Saturday and you show up in anything but the right shorts and shoes, no one would pick you for their team.

At the time, we all thought it was a plea to get us to wear the gym uniform. Later I realized that it's a core value. Customers' reaction to your actions reflect your actions. If you show up ready to play on the same court as your customers, they understand that you're taking them seriously. So much of business is concerned with setting expectations of others, but how much time do we spend living up to expectations?

Proper planning

Nothing beats good planning but execution is critical. The best laid plans are little without execution. Sometimes, plans need to be shorter-term too. If an organization isn't going to make it six months, a two year strategic plan isn't helpful.

Always focus on flawless and consistent execution. Any plans that are followed should include sufficient detail on execution and the means to make execution more flawless and consistent. Often it takes time to reach an acceptable level but constantly aiming at an attainable goal breeds success.

Plans should be diversified and robust enough to account for reasonable unforseen events. Just because something seems to be going right, win-win bolstering of existing plans only serves to guarantee execution.