General George Patton on Planning

In June 1945, WWII was hurtling toward victory for the Allies. My father was a 27 year old Captain with the 101st Airborne, fresh from a historic defense of Bastone at the Battle of the Bulge. At the time the 101st was attached to the 3rd Army Division. The commander of the 3rd Army was General George S. Patton, “Old Blood and Guts.” Patton sent a memo to all of his officers encouraging them to finish the job and win the war. In his memo, I find several ideas all marketers can apply to our current troubled economy and companies. In the follow weeks, I’ll outline some of Patton’s wisdom. Here are his thoughts on planning.

“Don’t confuse HASTE with SPEED. It may take three to four hours to set up a battalion attack from two directions, but will get home in thirty minutes – that is SPEED. If you try to put on such an attack in thirty minutes, it may take several hours to get home – that is HASTE.”

Too often we fail to plan adequately and end up either failing or taking too long and costing too much to reach our objective (market introduction, brand launch, etc.). Patton’s advice would be to invest the time and money to do the research, create a workable plan, collect the needed resources, get in position, THEN attack. That requires discipline, a trait few companies have today. As marketers, it is our job to push back when leadership wants to act before the time is right. We have to have a sense of urgency but, as Patton suggests, not be hasty.

The former head of Product Management for Microsoft once described knowing when to launch a new software product was like holding a bowl of Jell-O. At first it wiggles and shakes, but as you hold the bowl still, the Jell-O settles down. At a certain point it’s still enough and that’s when you launch it into the market.

As we’ve heard all of our careers, failure to plan is a plan for failure.