image by csitscenter, flickr collection

i was in a meeting recently with a senior associate in my firm, and spent the vast amount of the 4 hours we had together furiously taking notes.  unfortunately i couldn’t write as fast as he was talking, so i ended up not capturing all of the information that was there for the taking.  for the most part, the vast majority of the time was spent discussing our earned value management capabilities at booz allen.  we did talk some about business in general and building capabilities that can grow and expand, and it was from this discussion that my largest, boldest, “even used a highlighter on it” note came from.  he said something to me that made a lot of sense:

always plan on success.

it’s a great quote.  you may mistakingly take it as an inspirational message, but that’s not at all what he intended.  it was actually meant to scare us, and remind us that we need to be prepared to succeed.  to be successful in business, it’s not enough to have a good idea.  even having passion and being a hard worker isn’t enough.  when you’re trying to stand up or start up something brand new, you have to have certain things in place to handle the change in environment.  nothing can kill a good idea quite like being unprepared to succeed.  if you aren’t ready to expand with the business, you’ll undoubtedly experience growing pains – much like wearing a shoe that’s two sizes too small.

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