Planning and Perfection will Kill your Progress

The person who executes beats the person who is still planning and perfecting every time!

I was reminded of this recently as I watched my neighbours work on their ice rink.  They spent countless hours out there in the cold, wind whipping across the lake clearing snow. They set up systems where they had water pumping through a hose so they could flood the area each week. They painstakingly spent time and effort to trudge through the freezing water and mop the surface so that it would be smooth to skate on. Each time there was a snowfall, they were out there diligently shoveling and clearing their little slice of Canadiana! They were out there every single weekend for twelve weeks and I saw a ton of effort and zero skating.

While that was happening, a group of people about a nine iron away cleared a regulation-sized rink for the community to use. Everyone pitched in and shovelled here and there. There were times after huge snowfalls that only half of the rink was cleared, and the other half had a foot of snow on it. The ice was imperfect and yet, there were people consistently out there enjoying hockey games, families had their young kids out there each weekend and it was constantly being used.

It drove home for me the importance of execution. When we spend so much time making something perfect and planning, we don’t get to experience the joy of actually “doing”! When we’re leading teams, if we spent all of our time brainstorming on strategy but we aren’t pulling the trigger and keeping our people accountable, we’re on the sidelines. It’s when we dive in, roll up our sleeves and try that matters! How much time is your team spending planning and how much is devoted to action which will drive results? What is each team member committed to this week that will positively impact your primary goal and overall vision?

If you don’t know, then they don’t know! It may be time to regroup and make small portions of your big strategy digestible into strategic rocks. Strategic rocks are goals that are outside of your normal day to day activities that will be a stretch for your team to achieve. They are in line with your big goals and they are completed within 90 days. They are also something that will launch you ahead of your competition. What strategic rocks can you implement today that will transition from planning to execution?

The other big A-HA moment I had was the changing of the seasons! While my neighbours started their rink endeavour almost three months ago, it’s now the beginning of March. Spring is right around the corner and it’s not lost on me that all of that time, effort and energy resulted in little joy experienced from actually using the rink!

I shared this quote and my thoughts on a LinkedIn post recently but it’s worth sharing here again. This too shall pass (COVID) but so will the opportunity to grow through it! While we’ve navigated some pretty brutal terrain as leaders during COVID, it has also been a gift for many companies like yours and mine to have the time to be more strategic. More importantly, it’s provided the opportunity to take those big visionary goals and create bite-sized strategic rocks to execute and move forward! What will you commit to this week to take action and move the needle forward?