Contemplate Your Next Move

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moneygolddiamond - ...

This true story of Stephen Shapiro is inspirated me, cause I have a similar condition which has shaking my thought and make me contemplated my next move just like him. So, here is the articles...

Many people create specific goals and detailed plans with the hope that someday they become a reality. But when faced with the amount of work that is really required to bring those plans to fruition, many people give up on their dreams.

But what if achieving your ambitions is not a matter of hard work and detailed plans? What if, instead, you only needed to have a clear intention and the desire to make progress every day?


Yesterday I was interviewed by a podcaster. During his introduction, he shared with his listeners that Penguin just published my fifth book, Best Practices Are Stupid. He also explained that I spend most of my time giving speeches on innovation around the world.

He then asked me, "How did you get to be where you are?"

The question caught me off guard as I have never been asked that during an interview before. I reflected and responded.

I started life as an engineer at Cornell. For the first years of my career with Accenture (then Arthur Andersen/Andersen Consulting) I applied engineering techniques to "white collar" work. This ultimately turned into Business Reengineering after Dr. Michael Hammer coined the term. Dr. Hammer was a highly respected author, professional speaker and world traveler.

I was fortunate enough to co-lead Accenture's reengineering practice, growing it to about one-third of the business and capturing a 35 percent market share. We were a huge success.

But then one day I had an existential meltdown.

My reengineering work was becoming synonymous with downsizing. Thousands of people were losing jobs as a result of our efforts to improve productivity. And I realized I could no longer continue to do this type of work.

I took a leave of absence and contemplated my next move. I realized I liked the work I was doing, but instead I wanted to help companies grow. I wanted to focus on innovation. But there was no home for a dedicated innovation group at the firm.

Around that same time in November of 1996, I met with a career coach at the prodding of a friend. He asked me a very simple question, "Where do you want to be in five years?"

I thought about it and responded, "I want to be the Michael Hammer of the next wave of business." I wanted to be an author and speaker who travels the world.

With this goal in mind, the coach instructed me to write down where I would need to be four years from now in order to achieve that goal. Three years from now. Two years. One year. Six months. Three months. One month. One week. One day. For each time horizon I needed to capture all of the activities necessary to get to where I wanted to go.

Frankly, upon completion, I looked at the plan and was turned off by the unending list of tasks I would have to execute over the next five years in order to achieve this goal. It was exhausting—not inspiring. Although I kept the notebook where I wrote down the goal, I ripped up the detailed plan and threw it in the trash.

Although I was not prepared to do all of the tasks on the list, I still had a strong desire to achieve the final result. Over the course of the next five years, I did virtually nothing that I had written on the document. Instead I focused on doing what I thought was both interesting (to me) and valuable to the organization.

I eventually found a senior Partner within Accenture who was supportive of my views and worked with me to create an innovation practice. Instead of hard work, I had a blast doing fun and exciting things at the company. I found ways of expanding my practice. I got to travel and started speaking around the globe.

During this time, I experienced what President Dwight D. Eisenhower once said, "In preparing for battle I have always found that plans are useless, but planning is indispensable." I discovered that my original plan was not the only way to get to where I wanted to go, especially if it involved activities that did not motivate me. I would burn out and lose interest quickly. Instead, each and every day, I looked at what would move me in the right direction. I didn't follow detailed plans but rather "meandered with purpose." It was a day-to-day plan rather than a long-range one.

On October 10, 2001, I had the book launch party for my first book, "24/7 Innovation." October 11, 2001 was my last day with Accenture. It was at that time that I launched my speaking practice.

I recently found that notebook and, surprisingly, almost five years to the day, I achieved what I had written. It clearly stated where I wanted to be in five years. And somehow, without all of the strife and struggle that I had expected, I achieved that aspiration.

Since then, I have had similarly amazing experiences. Although this new book is my fourth commercially published book, I have never taken the traditional approach of writing a book proposal. In this particular case, I got a two book deal simply by playing my Personality Pokercard game at an event where authors and publishes were gathered.

Sometimes work does not have to be work. And goals do not need to be something you look to the future in order to achieve. Sometimes, being true to yourself, focusing on what matters today, and then taking action each and every day via small steps, you can achieve your wildest dreams will less effort than you ever imagined.

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