When a Plan Comes Together

Plans
rarely go
as planned.

In fact,
they often fall
apart.

Perhaps this
is why Hannibal often said
“I love it,
when a plan
comes
together.”

As if to denote
that a plan
has to fall apart
first
before it can come together
to create
a new plan
that actually goes
as planned.

p.s: Much gratitude goes out to Pinky Parsons for inspiring this post.

Fast vs Far

“Do you know
what my co-founder told me?.”
the founder asked,
rhetorically.

If you want to go fast,
go alone.
If you want to go far,
go together.”
he smirked,
before continuing.

“He doesn’t seem to realize
that there are few times
when I feel more alone
than when I’m together
with him.”

Company: The Play

A company is
—among other things—
a play.

Just as Shakespeare once said
—all the world’s a stage,
and all the men and women
merely players—
when we first start our company,
we cast ourselves into roles.

CEO
CTO
COO

What we forget
is that there is no script.

In fact,
we mistake scripts
from other plays
as our own.

Which leads us to think
that we know what a CEO
is supposed to be like.

To think we know
what a CTO or a COO
is supposed
to be like.

To think we know what a father,
a wife,
a son,
a designer,
is supposed
to be like.

The question is
“In which play?”

There comes a time
in the lifecycle of an organization
—more than once—
where we need to revisit
our roles.

Not merely to redefine them,
But also to start writing
our own play
together.

A play
all of us want
to be in.

Power with vs Power Against

Here’s something I learned from carpentry.

Wood is wood.

No matter my desire,
it’ll never be metal.

If I must only use wood
to make furniture,
I have no choice, but to
respect
listen to, and
consider its context.

This is not because I’m a good moral person.
It’s just physics.

This doesn’t mean we should do as the wood tells us, though.
In fact, woods don’t speak!
It just reacts to our behavior.

To realize our empathy is to
be creative in our response to the reaction of an “other,”
like wood,
so as to flow with them,
as one,
like water.

It’s when we’re in such state of togetherness
that we can use our power
with each other,
instead of
against each other.

Difficult,
but possible
through practice.

Strong Together

We say we want to be strong.

And by strong, we usually mean strong alone.

We can also be strong together.
And by being strong together,
I don’t mean helping others become strong alone.
Nor do I mean getting help so we can become strong alone.
I mean being strong by virtue of being together.

To be strong together is to be dependent, even for a moment.
Dependent is a dirty word with which nobody wants to be associated .
Yet, there are things we must depend on others to achieve.
Survival is one such thing.

Few things are more rewarding than knowing that we are needed.
Few things are more deadly than thinking we are not.