Lessons In Business. #Adaptability

There have been several instances where I’ve seen a business owner, or even people throughout life, make a plan and stick to it indefinitely, straying further and further from where they actually wanted to go. All because they didn’t adapt, change their plan, and roll with the metaphorical punches or new information and events that occur.

Plans are useless but planning is indispensable.

This may sound confusing at first and it probably requires some explanation.

This is a quote from Dwight D. Eisenhauer in the 1940s. Now, it may have been wartime when he said it, however, I believe it applies to many aspects of business as well. It is a way of articulating the importance of adaptability from a solid footing. 

Let’s explain the second half of the statement.

Planning is indispensable.

I think this is an uncontested statement. Most would agree that planning is needed to achieve anything close to the optimum result. A good plan consists of arming yourself with research and knowledge of your environment, looking at your strategic goals and working out how to best achieve them given your knowledge of the situation or realm in which you’re operating.

Now back to the first; plans are useless.

This is perhaps where it’s more contested. For me, the way I’ve distilled it down over the years is that once you begin any venture, you receive new information to add into your never-ending assessment of the environment. As such, if you had to plan from scratch with the new information (that you only have after you’ve started to execute your plan) your initial plan will be different.

Combined as a whole, it boils down to adaptability.

Having a plan is needed to put yourself in the best possible position to move forward. However, once you have started, you should expect your plan to change constantly as you develop an increasingly refined understanding of the wider environment and the new ways to optimise your efforts to achieve your goals.