Chapter 36 Visions and Strategies.
Experts maintained that people with dreams, visions and strategies are quite often more powerful than those with only knowledge and skills. I couldn't agree more with them. If you can see ahead and anticipate things, you can adapt to changes and seize opportunities. Recently I met an acquaintance while flying, and we talked about 2 of my friends who had risen to the top 2 positions in his multinational firm. „What really sets them apart from the others? I asked curiously. He thought deeply and replied, „They can stand back and look at the whole picture and the future. Mr Kazuo Wada, Chairman of Yaohan International, said it rightly: „The most important thing needed in the top executive of an enterprise is vision; an ideal, a dream of the future as it should be.
Once there was a very hard working lumberjack who wouldnt rest. His progress slowed and each tree took longer. He kept at it, until finally he collapsed. He never thought of sharpening the saw! In his exhaustion he forgot to work smarter not harder, and to stand back and look at the picture. It is good to labour, but it is wiser to widen your field of awareness and vision. C. W. Leadbeater noted, „It is the commonest of mistakes to consider that the limit of our power of perception is also the limit of all there is to perceive. Furthermore, in life it is better to look where you are going than to see where you have been (unless you are learning from mistakes). It is also better to see the good side than the bad. Our prisons and ghettos are filled with people who failed to see the God-given beauty, abundance and potentials. The world would be a better place, if its leaders had fewer nightmares and more vision, and if we had more vision and less television! Far-sightedness is important because you cannot tackle the future on present premises and parameters. Life is an era of continuous change. Can you face the challenges of change without some foresight, insight and plans? Can you merely flounder, and fight surprises and obstacles with trials and errors?
Your first step towards good vision is to start with the end, and visualise that distinguished person you want to be, at say, 45 and 60. Next, you cultivate good foresight by keeping abreast and staying ahead. Study all the dynamic areas of change; areas in data processing and information technology, transportation and high-speed travel, lasers and electronics, foods and crops development, exploration of minerals and potentials, space research, etc. You then identify the niche markets and rapid-growth fields that interlock with your hobbies, interests and aspirations. Subsequently you take inventory of your present and future resources. These include yourself, your family, human and capital resources, as well as relevant circumstances. If the circumstances are not there, create them! Then you visualise the various new human needs that will arise globally. The last step is to strategise. How will you harness fully all these resources for maximum results and demand-fulfilment within a scheduled period?
There is no doubt that God has a plan for each of us. We give the finishing touch. It is not enough to know where we are going, we have to know how and when we are getting there. So I cannot see how we can efficiently reach our goals by merely thinking about them. A good scheme gives reasons for taking initiative and the urge to take action. We must have a schedule and get down to work; otherwise we would be drifting aimlessly. Various distractions, negativism and obstacles will then run our lives, and we may never even get started!
Projects fail because people fail to plan. Imagine a house built candidly without a drawing; and a general fighting a war without strategies! Nowadays, even large corporations employ old Japanese and Chinese battle tactics. Look at how Coke and Pepsi are endlessly striving to outshine each other. Michael Jackson and Sir Elton John were paid millions to play on heartstrings and entice the world to the Colas. (The results were beyond expectation, even though Michael did not drink Pepsi and declined to hold a can for the commercial.) Prominent entrepreneurs like D. Trump, Richard Branson, Iacocca and Bill Gates all adopt ingenious strategies to advance their business empires. Charles Buxton noted, „In life, as in chess, forethought wins. The better we contrive, the clearer the plan of action, and the better prepared we are to use resources to achieve our objectives. After all, success is not always brought by lady-luck, or freak accidents.
Sir William Osler observed: „When schemes are laid in advance, it is surprising how often the circumstances fit with them. We should all have both a General Plan, and Specific Strategies. The General Plan applies to almost all situations, and includes guidelines, goals, and all the present and future resources needed to reach targets at estimated dates. It also provides a broad and long-term view, and thus the need to innovate, take risks and do things that may not make sense in the short term. The Specific Strategies apply to more exact situations. It specifies the game plan for advancing, which are flexible and adaptive to changing situations, with contingencies and options. These channels of action are more specialised, so they are not only the manoeuvre of resources, but the development of stronger ones, through creative rethinking, reshuffling, retooling, reinforcement and renewals!
You really need the best stratagems to achieve your dreams,. Put things in place carefully, with thorough consideration and anticipation of variables, setbacks and uncertainties. Strategies need not be rigid timetables to restrict your freedom and creativity. Formulating a plan for your future is perhaps the most important and creative task you will ever undertake. It will in fact give you greater freedom and a richer, fuller life.
If you set high ideals and standards, with the concerted blessings of vision, desire, beliefs and enthusiasm, you will simply find a way. You will see little limitations and overcome hurdles courageously. D. Curtis once said, „We are what and where we are because we have first imagined it. We normally can see further than we can reach, but we should not stop reaching. As soon as we commit ourselves impetuously to making our dreams come true, the where, when and how will reveal themselves. Go for it!
"Many an object is not seen, though it falls within the range of our visual ray, because it does not come within the range of our intellectual ray." - Henry D. Thoreau.
"Where there is no vision, the people perish..." - Proverbs, 29:18.
"In business, like in the martial arts, the essential thing is not just to deflect the blows, but to foresee where they're coming from." - B.Tapie.