Can You Dream Your Way To Success?

In my hippie youth I used to write poetry, or something similar. Mostly a waste of ink. One time though, I got it right, a poem that included this line:

You don't use dreams to achieve reality, you use reality to achieve dreams.

What does that mean? Simple: you can't achieve goals (what you dream of) by dreaming about them ("how wonderful it'll be ..."), you achieve goals in the dirty, gritty world of reality. You manipulate what is (reality) to achieve what might be (dreams).

Dick needs two types of plans, a strategic plan (dreams about where he wants to go) and many tactical plans (this is how to manipulate reality to get there). Both are crucial: Dick can't reach his dreams by dreaming about them (making more strategic plans), but must instead get his metaphorical hands dirty mucking about in the world as it is. Reality.

Both types of plans are needed. Without the strategic plan the company can easily lose focus, ending up with a hodgepodge of services and capabilities each going in their own direction. Part of building a company is creating synergy between disparate business units, and synergy depends upon a clear vision --
This is where we are going/what we are doing.

As much as I disliked spending hours during the 80s and 90s wearing my consultant power tie helping bored managers create a "mission statement" for their unit, it actually is--can/should be--a crucial part of unit success. Dick needs a Mission Statement plus, a clear description of Acme's objectives, for the company as a whole and for each business unit within.

Yet as each group of frustrated managers would complain, a grand Mission Statement doesn't help reach their monthly objectives. MBO demands action, now! This is where the tactical plans come in, a Sales Plan for this item, a PR/Marketing Plan for introducing "new service A" into that market, a HR Plan for how to hire 500 people in three months, then how to mold them into Acmers, then how to manage and measure their performance.

Done properly a marriage of dream and reality occurs, a way to judge whether "new service A" should be offered in "new market X." How? By going to the Strategic Plan and asking a simple question: does introducing new service A in market X move Acme closer to achieving the overall strategic goals? If yes, do it (or at least build and analyze a business case for doing it); if not, then forget it (sell it to someone else if possible).

There are shelves of learned texts about planning and decision making, and while a lot of it is useful, much of it is verbiage making a simple process complicated. No one can know the future. Every plan, every goal, is a guess. I contend that the ultimate test of whether you should strive for a goal is whether achieving the goal gets you closer to reaching your dream.

You must know where you are going in order to know whether what you are doing is moving you closer or farther from your destination.

I wrote the poem to help a dear friend get over a bad breakup, but ended up with far more, a principle I have used throughout my life (business and personal). Start with a goal then do things that help you get there. Life and business are not as complicated as both appear to be, or as we make them. Strip everything away and you are left with basic rules and principles, simple in appearance but powerful when used properly.