Positioning
Being ready in the right place at the right time makes everything easier.
Sometimes you need to position yourself for a better view – to improve your vision – before you can position yourself to do. If you can’t see properly, you can’t decide.
Once you’ve got a decent view you can move to position yourself with respect to whatever’s coming, gathering the resources that you need and giving yourself enough time and space to use them.
Good positioning – creating time and space and being prepared – ends up looking like skill in execution, and it sort of is. It’s a skill of its own – the skill of making the most of what you’ve got.
The more I practice, the luckier I get
You can never see enough, never have all the information to be perfectly prepared – you do what you can with what you have. But the better your vision and positioning is, the better you’ll be able to respond to opportunities that come your way by pure, dumb luck.
Running to stay still
Once you’re in position, you might have to work hard just to stay there. Sometimes this is necessary – and keeping moving is almost always better than staying still – but if you find yourself having to run constantly just to keep up you might be playing the wrong game or need to think again about where the best positions are.
Some questions about positioning:
- Where am I now?
- Where do I need to be, by when?
- How do I get there?
- What’s my next step, and the one after that – and what will make it easier for me to take them?
- What types of relationships do I need, and with who?
- What skills and attributes will I need once I’m in position, and how will I develop them?
- What resources?
- What else do I need to know?
- Who is in position already that I can learn from – or need to be cautious of?
(These are all questions about vision, too.)