RULE 27: Develop A Game Plan

Developing a game plan is a bit like an actor choosing a part and learning their script. Your game plan has to be who you are going to be. Not many people choose consciously to be a loser, but that’s where they end up. Don’t let it happen to you. And it doesn’t happen, once you seize the initiative and develop a game plan.

Your game plan is a sort of personal mission statement. It is different from setting objectives, which is how to be the person your game plan decides you are.

So who are you going to be? Successful? A failure? Someone who gives up? Someone who picks themselves up, dusts themselves off, and starts all over again? A brilliant career strategist? A loser? None of these?

Obviously, you could decide to be ruthless, unpleasant, cruel, vindictive, but we assume you won’t—a Rules Player is never any of these. Your game plan should include your qualities as well as what sort of game you want to plan—“I will be successful and still be a thoroughly nice person.”

Not many people sit down and consciously carry out this exercise. It may seem simple, but it is an essential tool to get you to where you want to be. If more people did this, they wouldn’t end up as idiots, or the office bore, or a gossip, or frighteningly callous in their dealings with their colleagues. If we all had to sit down and write our game plan—and then live by it—we might all end up as nicer people. There is no bad karma in trying your hardest to be pleasant, cooperative, helpful, friendly, kind, and honest in your dealings with others around you. Who would sit down and write, “I am going to be a complete and utter bastard and harm as many people as I can, be disliked by everyone, and generally make myself as unpopular as possible”? Yes, no one would write it, but I’ve worked with quite a few who live by it as a game plan. Yes, they may be successful, but how do they sleep at night? How do they live with themselves? 

I once worked with a fairly senior manager whose technique was to arrive, walk through the department, bawl out as many people as he could, go to his office, put his feet up with a coffee for half an hour and then walk back again being as nice as pie to everyone. When I questioned him about this, he said, “It keeps them on their toes. They never know where they are with me.” He was genuinely disliked by everyone, feared by most, and commanded zero respect from his peers. Good game plan. Not.

NOT MANY PEOPLE CHOOSE CONSCIOUSLY TO BE A LOSER, BUT THAT’S WHERE THEY END UP.