Quote-A-Day: Day 342

Sometimes all a backup plan does is make you realize how important it is to stick with your initial plan. #QuoteADay #Day342 #lead #learn

This morning I was reading a piece about the Giant's tight end, Larry Donnell. In it, Donnell talks about his unwillingness to accept a back-up plan; he knew he was going to do whatever he had to in order to play football in the NFL and no substitute would be enough.  If interested, the article, written by Tom Pedulla, can be found here.

I think there is a lot of leadership learning here.  While it is important for us to have backup plans in place, sometimes it is equally important for us to realize that our initial plans are really non-negotiables.

And sometimes, the only way to realize that is to put a backup plan in place.

The primary purpose of a backup plan is to make sure that if something goes wrong, there will be another way to move forward.

But, another purpose of a backup plan is to provide a comparison.  What do we lose if we abandon our initial plan?  What do we gain?  Nothing builds resolve and resilience like playing through a variety of situations and determining what will and won't work.

I'm a firm believer in backup plans, but I'm also a firm believer in making sure that the plans that do get carried out are truly the best, even if they're also the hardest.