‘We don’t have time to plan it – just go do it!’

Don’t know if you’ve ever heard somebody – typically, a boss or a manager – say ‘we don’t have time to plan it – just go do it’. And maybe you’ve wondered if this is good advice / a good strategy / good management practice. After all, they’re probably more senior to you, more highly paid, more experienced, more knowledgeable.

Well, here’s what cooking dinner would be like using the same ‘we don’t have time to plan it, just go do it’ approach.
Imagine this. It’s about six o’clock in the evening and you suddenly realise you’re hungry. You decide to cook dinner.

Here’s what you do next:
1. You light the gas ring.
2. You look in the fridge to see if there’s something to cook.
3. You find there’s nothing you like there, so you decide to head down to the supermarket. Hopefully, you turn off the gas ring before you go.
4. You return with some eggs. You’re going to make an omelette.
5. You light the gas ring again.
6. Where’s the frying pan? Uh oh, it’s in the dishwasher and the dishwasher is part way through its cycle. Okay, let’s wait until the cycle is over. Turn off the gas again. Go watch TV.
7. Finally the dishwasher cycle is over and you starting cooking your omelette. But then you think, ‘It’d be really nice to have some fried potatoes with the omelette.’ But oh hell, you should have done the potatoes first because they take longer than the omelette.
8. You finish the omelette and put it in the oven to keep warm. You start on the potatoes. You’re going to have a can of mushy peas with them and happily, you have both enough potatoes and the mushy peas.
9. But mid way through frying the potatoes, you change your mind. Wouldn’t asparagus be really nice instead of mushy peas? Back down the store again.
10. And so on …

Good advice / a good strategy / good management practice? What do you think?