Hope is a Terrible Strategy

Today the President spoke of more "hope" and the title of this blog entry was evidenced once again.  Now, don't get me wrong, it is important to have hope, but to base decisions on "hope" isn't an effective strategy.

I would suggest instead, to hope in strategy!  In business, there will always be a risk-reward equation, and most of that comes from this concept of "hope".  However, if you find yourself constantly forecasting by saying, "I hope..." (fill in the words), then you are most likely creating chaos in your company, home, or wherever.  Let me suggest a few simple strategies to step through when hoping for a better future, or outcome.

1. What are the known variables?  As you look into the future, how much of your new idea or "hope" is based on things that you can identify? Once you know what they are, attached a tangible measurement to them, and MEASURE them.  When speculating about what might happen, measuring assumptions of what you do know, is a key to knowing how far to push the envelope as you move forward into the unknown areas.
2. What can you risk?  It is important to identify a limit to risk.  When you combine this with step 1, you can keep a constant risk assessment equation.  Also, if you are finding that things are going better than "hoped for", you can potentially increase the goal, because the risk is diminished by the success.
3. Be prepared to fail!  I remember seeing this quote sometime ago on a blog, and I wrote it down, "Life's real failure is when you do not realize how close you were to success when you gave up."  Too often, fear will cause a person, company, etc to quit just a little too soon, so they won't have to "have failed." If it is worth doing, it is worth failing at, don't forget that.

This is a somewhat simplistic and generic look at a way to have hope, without having hope as a strategy.  I "hope" it helps you be able to WIN FOR THEM!

Steve Boyett