Unhelpful Assumptions (for Leading Through Uncertainty) #2 | “Our Plan is Right”

Just as rules are meant to be broken (sometimes), we could say that plans are meant to go awry—and they do (very often). How, then, should you respond when things aren’t going to plan?

In the 2023 Rugby World Cup semi-final against England, South Africa’s Springboks found themselves struggling in unexpected wet weather against a determined opposition playing to a slightly different pattern from what they had played before. South Africa’s coach Jaques Nienaber—no doubt prompted by his boss Rassie Erasmus—subbed flyhalf Manie Libbok in the 31^st minute, much sooner than would normally be the case. Historically, it had always been said that the Springboks had no Plan B. Former England captain Martin Johnson can be found on YouTube saying, “When Plan A doesn’t work, they go to Plan A.” Meaning, they just do the same thing, harder. How often, in the corporate environment, do we do that? Just push harder. It’s not always the appropriate response when faced with the unexpected.

Sport provides a great analogy for the business context because it’s a microcosm of the time-bound, competitive context we find ourselves in, and it involves people doing their jobs—and inevitably making mistakes—in front of millions of people. (When my son was nine years old, he asked me, “Dad, why do you watch so much sport?” I said, “Because you see people trying their very best and there’s so much to learn from that.” He smacked his forehead and said, “Stupid question to ask a coach!”)

The relevance of sport for this topic is that you run on with a plan. You’re one hundred percent committed to that plan. But you know one other thing: the opposition also has a plan. As much as it’s your skills and talents against the opposition’s, it’s your plan against theirs. In sport, there are momentum swings as each team’s plan gains dominance. The team that starts to fall behind always has a choice: react, or respond. To react means a knee-jerk reaction, that thing you always typically do, with no awareness, no thought, no choice. Usually, that means staying with Plan A, only pushing harder, moving faster, shouting louder. To respond, on the other hand, means to act with awareness and choice.

What should we be aware of? What choices do we have?

The sporting analogy might lead us to think only about what our competition in the market is doing. But in these uncertain times, it’s less about your competition and more about broader factors: political, social, technological, environmental factors. In the game referred to, the environmental factors (the weather) played a big part. Technological factors (the preceding week’s video analysis) went out the window because the opposition was doing things differently. Since it was being played in France, there were many more English than South African supporters (the social factor).

The plan wasn’t working.

One reaction would have been to do what Martin Johnson pointed to: go harder, faster and longer at Plan A. Get angry. Try to force it through. Like when sales targets aren’t being met. Push harder! Get busier! Call faster! To do otherwise, we seem to believe, would be to say that the plan was wrong, and we know it’s not wrong! We spent all that time on strategy, we know the plan isn’t wrong, so try harder! Another reaction would be to switch to Plan B. However, if Martin Johnson is to be believed, other teams are full of Plan B’s and none of them have a record at world cups as good as the Springboks do.

So then what?

Responding is not about flipping the assumption from “our plan is right” to “our plan is wrong”. It’s more conscious, more considered than that.

Responding is not about flipping the assumption from “our plan is right” to “our plan is wrong”. It’s more conscious, more considered than that. It’s based on the more realistic assumption that, “Our plan is one half of the story.” In other words, life doesn’t sit inert, like a rugby ball on the pitch before kick-off, waiting for us to bring our plan. The opposition, the weather, the social context are not paused as if part of a video game waiting to be switched on when we’re ready to bring our plan.

Life has its own plans. Or we could say, life is a plan, a great, big monstrous, random plan waiting to devour our plan. At least that’s how it feels when we assume that our plan is either right or wrong. If we assume instead that our plan is just one half of the story, we might see a way to merge life’s plan with our plan, and get a result is different from what we anticipated, but still a result. An ugly win by one point, instead of a stylish win by 20, but still a win. And a win gained because we responded and didn’t react.

In our example, the coaches pulled off a key player after only 31 minutes. They responded. They didn’t worry about personal feelings or interpersonal relationships or even public reputations—the flyhalf’s or their own. (Libbok was only just starting to make it in his position, now he had been made to “look bad”; likewise, as leaders, they might “look bad”.) To worry about that would have been a different sort of reaction. They put the team first. They recognised the conditions and what needed to happen. Ironically, they stuck to Plan A, but instead of pushing harder, faster, they merged with what was happening, made a small adaptation: they brought on a player who was better suited to what they needed to do in the conditions. And they won.