Luck Is...
How many times have we heard that someone was “lucky” to get a piece of business, or to achieve something? I came across a useful formula for “luck” some time ago which made eminent sense to me:
Luck = Preparation + Opportunity
Having thought about how this applied to me, I felt that I could agree. The main question is then, what should we prepare for?
To me, preparation in my business is thinking about possible training or consultancy scenarios and then thinking up and researching material to cover them. It might also involve thinking about what I don’t want to happen to my business (e.g. new burdensome regulations) and then working out how to handle the “problem”.
I’ve found that, in the case of training scenarios, a lot of what I prepared some time back is suddenly in demand, and that often all I need to do is update material to have a realistic proposition in a short space of time for my potential client.
Of course, all the preparation in the world is no good if the opportunity to use it doesn’t present itself, but that’s a risk one takes. So much of life is spent preparing for what doesn’t happen, but experience and “keeping our ear to the ground” helps us to see what may or may not be important.
Taking things a step further, could “Business Continuity Plans” contribute to a business’ luck? If a business can weather a crisis better than the competition, is this “luck” or “good planning that was given an opportunity”?
However we care to look at it, preparation has a great part to play in how things turn out for us.
I have spent more than half my life delivering change in different world markets from the most developed to “emerging” economies. With more than 20 years in international financial services around the world running different operations and lending businesses, I started my own Consultancy to provide solutions for improving performance, productivity and risk management. I work with individuals, small businesses, charities, quoted companies and academic institutions across the world. An international speaker, trainer, author and fund-raiser, I can be contacted by email. My website provides a full picture of my portfolio of services. For strategic questions that you should be asking yourself, follow me at @wkm610.
Labels: Leadership, Productivity, Strategy
posted by William Martin @ 09:34
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