Israel Business Management

Well, never say never. I am sure that someone will point out to me that there have been successful companies that have taken "short cuts" on a process and been successful.

My premptory response - that is the exception that proves the rule. I would hardly call the "short cut" a strategy. Like the Hail Mary pass in American football, it may work once in a while, but you never see a coach call the Hail Mary play in the middle of the 1st quarter. It only comes into play when a team is losing and has only one option left, the short cut to victory, the Hail Mary.

Sometimes the process can seem long, but one of the things that following the process does is build repeatability. If you take a short cut, you may or may never find it again, but following a well-thought out and defined process will produce the ability to repeat the results time after time (at least until market dynamics will change and you need to redefine the process).

Process comes about because of agreement of many people from different points of view. We had mentioned, in an earlier post, that one of the dangers of employees all attacking a problem the same way, but process should come from all people coming at a problem from a different angle.

Once consensus is reached, then the process can be put into place and executed upon. Refining it will require testing and modification based on results.

Now that I have finished my tirade, here is an example of a Hail Mary that worked, when Doug Flutie was in Boston College (and it is still the exception that proves the rule, just look at how shocked they all were when they scored):