Ready, Aim....Follow Through

My fiancée and I recently completed a hand gun training and safety course. Our instructor, Craig Turner, is a police officer. Mr. Turner also teaches other police officers how to shoot hand guns.

Mr. Turner taught us the basics of hand gun safety. Important concepts, such as, the gun is always loaded. Know what is in back of your target. Your finger doesn’t go on the trigger until you are going to shoot. And know, when you pull the trigger, you are going to do some serious damage.

From a technical standpoint, Mr. Turner taught us the concept of “ready, aim, fire and follow through.” In business, we have heard of “ready, aim, fire” or, if you prefer or you’re Ross Perot, “ready, fire, aim.” Even though the trigger had already been pulled and the bullet was in the process of exiting the barrel of the gun, it was follow through that made all the difference in the accuracy of the shot.

The similarities in business are striking. Business leaders spend countless hours on planning. They might bring in a facilitator, hold off-site planning sessions, and come back with something akin to a leather bound business plan….that never gets implemented. Like with hand guns, it is the “follow through” that differentiates companies that get things done from those that simply dither along through another useless planning cycle.

So why is getting things done so difficult in a typical organization. B. Chuck Ames, president of Reliance Electric Company described one of the problems of failed execution this way in the article Basic Management Concepts.

“No one should ever be pressured (or allow themselves to be pressured) into making unrealistic commitments. But once commitments are made, they should always be fulfilled. The good manager knows that most commitments are broken because of a sloppy attitude that always manages to find a rationale for failure. For this reason, good managers insist that all commitments be met. It makes no difference whether the commitment seems trivial, e.g. to return a phone call or pass on certain information by a certain time – or crucial, e.g. to meet a project completion date or achieve planned sales or earnings results. It must be met once it has been made.”

To shoot better or get things done in business, follow through is omnipotent. If you would like a copy of the complete B. Chuck Ames article or Mr. Turner’s phone number, please contact me. I will be sure to follow though on your request.