What’s Your Wiring? Ready. Aim. Fire. or Ready. Fire. Aim.?

What’s your implementation speed?  Are you the “Ready. Aim. Fire.” type?  Or are you more of the “Ready. Fire. Aim.” type?

We were having a great conversation yesterday*…the really good kind that leads either to a great idea or a brawl (figurative for us).  Suddenly I found myself allied with the proponent of “Fire. Fire. Fire.”  Believe me.  It makes sense to think about what you’re doing.  I do believe that.  But the part about the massive time to study the concept and get it perfect IS the problem for many organizations.  I have no doubt about that.

So the question is, “What to do about it?”  Can you move from Ready. Aim. Fire. to Ready. Fire. Aim?  That’s the question, isn’t it?  If you’re like many organizations you’re stuck in the land of too careful studies that are really only about delay.

One of the great learnings from The Answer to How Is Yes: Acting on What Matters by Peter Block is that the motivations of the questions and need for study often come from a desire to delay.  My own conviction is that the pursuit of problem-free delays more ministry than anything else.

What if you could make the move to Ready. Fire. Aim?  What could you try that you’re prevented from trying right now?  What could you get permission to test if you were just free to give it a shot?  I love today’s post from Seth Godin.  The idea of Make Something Happen is SO GOOD.  Believe me…it becomes a poster on my wall along with the great Mario Andretti poster, “If everything seems under control…you’re just not going fast enough.”  I’ll put up a picture of it on Monday.  In the meantime, be sure and take a look at Seth’s post.

*This article was originally posted in 2006 on StrategyCentral.