| Monday, July 12, 2010

Another of Steven Pressfield’s posts caught my attention this week, following last month’s ‘start at the end’ idea. This one is about ‘starting before you’re ready’ and I didn’t agree so much with it.

Steven argues that you shouldn’t: “…wait till you’ve got your ducks in a row. Dive in now;”and cites both theatrical improvisation and a military analogy with German general Erwin Rommel from World War II to support the idea of relying on your Muse:

“His superiors wanted him to wait till all his forces had landed and the Afrika Korps was at full strength. Instead Rommel hopped into his Fieseler Storch scout plane and flew east to take a peek at the British lines. What he saw, amazed him. The Brits had pulled back; their defenses were thin to nonexistent. Rommel attacked. ”

I don’t know if I agree with this one so much.

Spontaneity might make for a good few laughs on an improv show but if a teacher tries that everyday in his classroom, his pupils aren’t going to learn very much. Ditto a businessman who wings it everyday when he rolls into the office.

You can’t constructively or creatively disregard the rules until you know what they are and how (not) to play by them.

The idea that creativity is something entirely inspirational and comes from nowhere is false. Some kind of structured creativity which takes into account what’s happened before and where you’re going is much more fruitful.

I don’t think the Rommel example holds out either: clearly this is a case of him reassessing his strategy in light of new information.

In this case, the mission (something along the lines of ‘”kill ze British“) didn’t change but his strategy did when he hopped into his light aircraft and discovered new information—that the reality on the ground was different from what they had previously thought it to be.

Ergo a change of plan and tempo, not a change of mission. The Germans were famous for this ‘mission command’ approach to military planning and the orders process—something which the British and Americans belatedly copied decades later.

We Brits didn’t pick up on it properly until after the Falklands war, I believe. I bet he made sure he had enough diesel and shells for his tanks as well.

I agree that you shouldn’t plan everything ad infinitum and never actually DO anything, but we should be careful not to equate changing the plan with a lack of proper preparation.

“Throw it all over the wall and get on with it” is alright but not if you forget your essential widgets or have no clue about why you’re jumping over the wall in the first place. Especially if you have no idea at all what’s on the other side.