First Serve Strategies

While reading a recent blog post entitled, Develop A Business Plan and Change It Up On A Regular Basis, Susan Gunelius describes the importance of frequently revisiting the business plan and changing it as needed.

Being immersed in the strategic management process for 30 years, I have seen, first hand, the importance of continually monitoring strategies in order to make necessary changes. Even the very best business plans are nothing more than a “great start”. I often tell the many entrepreneurs and students I work with that the business plan changes the minute it is introduced to the market.

In the first sentence of her blog, Susan asserts that, “Most people in business believe that you should make a business plan and ‘stick to the plan’.”

Growing up, our family had a wonderful tradition of engaging in debate at the dinner table. These debates often became so spirited that, to an outsider, it might have the appearance of a town hall brawl. During those discussions I can still hear my mom saying, “never say never”. And if one of us fell into the trap of saying, “they say…”, it would be immediately met with “Whose they?” from my dad. As such, whenever a sentence begins with the phrase “most people”, my focus tends to drift away from the intended message to wondering about the veracity of whether or not it is really most people.

I am not really interested in determining if most people in business believe that you should stick to the plan. What I do find interesting are the contrasting philosophies by different types of people about changing the plan.

In large companies it is not uncommon to find scores of employees who only wish, “we could put a stake in the ground”. At the same time senior executives often embrace plan changes. In my work with startups and entrepreneurs I find a very different dynamic.

Instead of refusing to make adjustments to the business plan when needed, they take on the characteristics of a Golden Retriever in a field of butterflies–jumping from one opportunity to the next with reckless abandon.

In the end, I think there are two factors determining which camp one falls into—locus of control and opportunism.

Typically, folks with a strong internal locus of control, complemented with a dose of opportunism are more comfortable with change, because they believe they have more control over the change. People with a strong external locus of control often fear being victimized by change, and nobody wants to be a victim. Or do they?

©Mark P. Loschiavo

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