Herman School of Business
Plans In A Random World...
The great baseball player Ted Williams had an uncle killed in World War I. On the last day of the war. The next day it was over and no one else died.
This morning on the news I saw a man sitting having dinner in a restaurant when an SUV plowed through the building sending his booth crashing against the counter…he didn’t even break a single bone.
Waylon Jennings had just finished a singing engagement and his fellow entertainers drove to the airport to head out to the next city. The plane was overloaded and Waylon was the odd man out so he stayed on the ground. Buddy Holly, the Big Bopper and Ritchie Valens were all killed as the plane crashed on take-off.
Life is full of random consequences from acts that sometimes defy logic…because of their timing. You can’t plan for these things to happen, they just do. But, I find some people run their business as though some random act will save their necks just in the nick of time. It comes from the fact that we never expect that bad things will happen if we just work hard and believe all will be well. Owners almost always look at the checkbook and say…well, we are near the edge of the cliff…but something will happen and money will show up. And there is a problem with the way the real world works. Sometimes good things do happen…because you did do something to create a sale or collect a receivable…and “luck” smiled on you. Don’t always count on that please.
Plan like the dickens. Execute what you know is a necessary plan, that may be harder than you want to work. Create opportunities for good things to happen by doing something besides lighting candles, praying, or just hoping the gods will smile on you. Take the random good things that happen as the cherry on top, and don’t run your business solely relying on random acts.
- Posted: 21 July 2008
- Comments: 0
- Category: Business success
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