Over Prepare, Then Go With The Flow

Over Prepare, Then Go With The Flow

Over Prepare, Then Go With The Flow

I read these words in a recent inspirational article written by Regina Brett, a 90 year old lady from Cleveland Ohio. She said "To celebrate growing older, I once wrote the 45 lessons life taught me. It is the most-requested column I've ever written." What does this have to do with business? Everything.

Arthur Rock is an American venture capitalist of Silicon Valley, California. He was an early investor in major firms including Intel and Apple Computer. I was CEO for a company funded by his firm, Venrock Associates. At an exclusive conference he said "The going in proposition is never the exit proposition." When he invests in a company, they must have a great product, solid business plan, huge market opportunity, and an exceptional management team. However, as prepared as this new venture is, Mr. Rock believes that their success will not be what their initial plan states, but rather, once they get in the market they will have to make major changes and adjustments in order to succeed. Given Mr. Rock's experience in seeing thousands of successful and even more unsuccessful companies, I take his beliefs as the rule.

A few years ago I was asked to be in charge of taking 90 familiesincluding babies, children, and grandparentson a trek to remember the Martin and Willie Handcart companies who pulled handcarts across the US plains to help settle the Utah territory. They we surprised by an early Winter and many of them died. There are many great stories of heroism and many sad stories of loss.

In preparation for the trek I spent an enormous amount of time forming companies made up of several families with a leader over each company, training the leaders, and going through the itinerary for the three day trek. Food had to be arranged. Speakers, musical numbers, and other logistics including medical help were critical to the success. I went through every detail of the trip with the other leaders over and over again rooting out minor problems and addressing each one in great detail.

At one point, a week or so before the trek, the individual who inspired the trek came to me in private, worried that we are so structured that we will not have any fun. I told him not to worry. I said because we are so over prepared, when the trek starts the only thing we will have to worry about is having fun. The trek was a great success. Even with all the preparation several activities did not go as planned, but we went with the flow and had a great time.

Regina really knows what she is talking about and business greats like Arthur Rock agree. Over preparation provides a lot of options for success once you begin your journey. Lack of preparation really only leaves one option: failure. As I get into the day to day of executing on a business plan of any scale and begin to go with the flow I always find that my preparation pays off in expected and unexpected ways. Over prepare, then go with the flow.

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