Mar 10
10
What are the advantages of thinking ahead?
It is special task of management to look beyond the day’s work and think about potential future problems. Next year situation may not be the same. In five year’s time, the scene may be completely transformed, bringing new opportunities and new dangers. It is vital, therefore, for the managers to think ahead. If they are to do this they must, first of all give themselves time to think. If they are frantically busy all day and exhausted before they leave the office, they have failed in their task of organization. They will make bad decisions when they tired, as for example, in giving up some project which, with persistence, might have succeeded. They will reject dome proposal because of some mistakes in detail. They will reach hasty conclusions towards the end of the day and then change their minds, making other people work late. People begin the next day tired and cross with the result that more mistakes follow, some in figures and some in policy. Errors accumulate – all the fault of a bad organization which gives the management no time to look ahead. The good leader looks to the feature and choose his own line, foreseeing the problem and defining the goal.
The first thing in the morning…
At least half an hour should be devoted just to plan your work for the day. Most executives have a tendency to rush in and so the first job that comes to hand; telephones, meetings, answering queries and so it goes on for the whole day. Pause for a while in the morning and just plan the priorities of your work. It could be the most useful part of your day.
Think of the future: The past is over and done with
Always think ahead and towards the future, and not so much about the past, or about what is happening today.
Concentrate on the opportunities rather than on the difficulties of a problem.
Tackle a problem in your own way, as you think best and not necessarily in a manner in which others have been doing it.
Always set your sights high and aim for something that will really make a big difference. This is far better than doing the usual thing or something which is easy to do.
The work of most executives today is really determined by decisions that have been made in the past. But this is something which should be avoided as far as possible. The work of executives should be to plan and decide things for the future. It may be to give up a product altogether, or to concentrate on the more important line, or perhaps to make an improvement on an existing line, or may be to change the pattern of the organization so as to make things work more smoothly. Executives should spend much more time thinking about the future than about today. This is the best way to avoid crises and haphazard work.
