You have devised an eloquent and thoughtful strategic plan. This plan details what you will be doing, how you will be doing it and when it will be done in the future so that you will assuredly meet your goals. This plan is your playbook for winning. One problem with planning though, it’s merely a theory until it has been applied.

The coach with the best playbook assembled for the upcoming season isn’t assured of winning a single game, let alone a championship. To have a playbook is a necessary point to begin with, but guarantees no outcomes.

I don’t recall an award or trophy ever being given for the best playbook of the year. The same could be said for the best screenplay, before it ever was formed into a successful movie. The plan can’t be deemed good until it has been successfully applied.

The plays will need to be practiced and run against a variety of conditions. There are many lessons to be learned about the theory. The talent implementing the plan will need to be discovered and refined. The precise timing of each play will need to be adjusted against each opponent.

To not have a strategic plan/playbook at the start of the each season to set your course amid great theory is a certain point of failure. To believe a good plan is all that you need is also a certain point of failure. Games are won or loss in the execution of the plan/playbook.

“Strategy is not the consequence of planning, but the opposite: its starting point.” — Henry Mintzberg —

MITM