DAVID GUERRA, MA, MBA

#Leadership in the news: Planning a Prison Break?

By now, almost everyone has heard of the two escapees from the Clinton Correctional Facility in New York State. By now, the news is getting old and a little tiring. These two guys escaped from prison so what? It happens all the time. It really does! Somewhere in the world someone is trying to come up with a way to get out of the prison they are currently confined. Their escape plan might include flying themselves over the prison walls. They could be planning to dig a tunnel that would rival anything seen on Hogan’s Heroes or whatever they could be cooking up.

You would be surprised at just how many escapes are being formulated at this very moment. However, in the case of the two escapees in New York, they planned this escape for five months. They came up with the plan; they worked the plan that included getting others involved. They then fine-tuned the plan. Then executed the plan. When things went wrong they adjusted their plan. This worked because as of this writing, they have not been re-captured.

So what does this have to do with leadership? It has plenty to do with leadership. All leaders must know how to and properly utilize the planning process.

It is all about plans and planning. The convicts planned an escape. The prison system had a plan in place on dealing with an escape, prison riots, when a prisoner gets a Dear John letter. There is even a plan for when the inmates use the restroom or shower.

When the escape took place, someone was not there to execute her part of the plan, thus the plan became worthless. However, as they have not been recaptured it is obvious that the two escapees have adjusted their plan and remain on the run.

For the correctional facility, the plan to recapture the escapees has not gone as anticipated. They deployed search parties, set up roadblocks, even went door to door to no avail. While they are still executing their plan, the expected outcome is yet to be achieved. Thus, this plan while not yet rendered worthless continues to be adjusted accordingly.

This makes it a classic example of General Eisenhower’s famous quote, “In preparing for battle I have always found that plans are useless, but planning is indispensable.“

They both had a plan of action that they were able to follow until the moment something happened that was not part of the plan. There are just too many variables (both known and unknown) that influence the outcome of any plan.

Q: What do you do when your plans do not got as planned?

DISCLAIMER: I am NOT advocating the escape of any convicted criminal from any correctional or detention facility. They are in a CORRECTIONAL FACILITY for a reason and are expected to remain there until they have successfully completed their sentence or properly released.