Steve Jobs once said …
‘You can’t connect the dots looking forward. You can only connect them looking backwards.’
True that.
With hindsight, everyone can tell you what should have been done. So if you had it, every plan would work out – right?
So, give this rear-view mirror technique a try when you’re working on your next plan.
Instead of trying to figure out what you need to do to succeed, instead spend some time as a team vividly imagining failure.
And then, get everyone gathered around a whiteboard and write these words at the top …
‘If only we’d …’
Now complete that sentence over and over again to figure out all of the things that – in hindsight – you would have done or done differently to have succeeded.
That list now becomes your actual plan.
Run this process alongside your usual process for coming up with a plan and you’ll be surprised at how different the two plans are.