The Business of Rocket Science is not rocket science

Long, long ago in a lifetime that feels far, far away, I worked briefly as a consultant.

It was back in 2004/2005 as I was getting out of the Army sitting on a bunch of income-producing real estate (and pile of cash that seemed enormous for me at the time).

I didn’t really have the need to work. But I realized that I knew nothing about traditional ‘business’. All I knew was government and military, nothing else.

So I went out and looked for a job… deciding that I’d work for a year in the private sector to learn more about commercial business and different opportunities.

The position I chose was at a medium-sized firm that was providing finance and accounting services to Fortune 500 companies. They told me that every week I’d be at a different company in a different location doing something different. And that was exactly what I wanted.

One week I was at a digital printing press factory. The next week at a chain daycare company. The next at a medical device manufacturer. The next at a company that made rockets and missiles.

It was my first exposure to real ‘business’. And I was pretty surprised when I learned that business wasn’t all that complicated after all… even the business of rocket science.

Note- that’s not to say that business is -easy-. There’s a huge difference between ‘easy’ and ‘uncomplicated’.

Business is not easy. It’s always full of challenges, obstacles, and uncertainties. And it takes hard work and creativity to overcome them.

But business is uncomplicated, i.e. it’s usually not terribly difficult to understand what you need to do next.

And early on I learned an incredibly valuable lesson that stuck with me for years.

SMART businesses define outcomes. They sit down and decide “What is the outcome we want to achieve?”

Then they design a plan to achieve that outcome, determining the resources that are required to implement that plan, including capital, people, etc.

Finally they come up with the most important metrics, i.e. KPIs (Key Performance Indicators), to measure how effectively the plan is being implemented- and commit to regularly monitoring the metrics.

If the metrics are consistently bad, it means either the plan is bad (and needs to be revised). Or the people implementing the plan are not skilled enough. Or possibly you’re looking at the wrong metrics.

[If you believe in a fourth possibility, i.e. that the outcome you’ve established is not achievable, then you probably shouldn’t start a business to begin with.]

But as a whole, that’s pretty much it. Define. Plan. Monitor. It’s really not rocket science. Even when you’re talking about rocket science.

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