East Coast Kahuna

Ready, Fire, Aim

My initial hesitation to start posting to this blog was that I would not be able to keep up with writing at fairly regular intervals. I also was concerned that I would run out of things to write about. Finally, after seeing some blogs by other people that I know, I just went ahead and started.

I still remember something I read in a book by Tom Peters, although I can't pinpoint which one. This was the philosophy of "Ready, Fire, Aim!" - his point was that if you get too occupied with aiming (excessive planning, too much research, wanting to be more certain before launching), you might not end up firing at all. It's better to try something, then reevaluate and adjust, then fire again, for as many iterations that you need. I'm fairly sure that Tom Peters was the one that started using this expression, although I've heard others use it without attributing it to him.

I have been trained as a researcher (I do have an academic PhD in the sciences) so this philosophy is harder to accept. You usually want to do a few more tests or dig up more related research before committing yourself to presenting or publishing results. You base your conclusions on your experiments, hoping that you didn't overlook something in the design of the series of test.

Nike has the slogan, "Just do it!" This is not quite the same. It's more reckless. It doesn't take into account making adjustments and trying again with an better plan based on some experience. In a simple three word slogan, Tom Peters captured the essence of what it takes to innovate.

posted by tjh14850 @ 7:29 AM