At a karate studio, the instructor sets up orange cones to create a square for the kids to run laps around. One little boy jumps across the inside of the cone instead of running around the outside of it. The instructor is immediately on it: “No cutting corners!” The boy had literally cut a corner.
Good planning and hard work lead to prosperity, but hasty shortcuts lead to poverty. — Proverbs 21:5 NLT
Success is found in careful planning and then execution. Too often people get an idea and they rush off to do it, skipping important steps along the way. The result is hasty work; it’s not at the level of quality it could have been. For the highest level of quality, a plan must be carefully thought through beforehand, the steps mapped out, the plan executed systematically.
Implementation without planning often leads to disaster, and yet the plan is nothing without the implementation. You need both to get the results you want. Leaders generally fall into two categories: those who act without planning first, and those who plan but never act. Which is your default?