Maxwelll's 19th Law: The Law of Timing

Maxwell's 19th Law, posted on pp. 193 of The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership Follow Them and People Will Follow You (Nelson Books, 1998): "When to Lead is As Important As What to Do and Where to Go."

On p. 198 there's a neat 2x2 table with Right/Wrong Action across the top and Right/Wrong Timing up the side.

Wrong Action + Wrong Time = Disaster.
Right Action + Wrong Time = Resistance.
Wrong Action + Right Time = Mistake.
Right Action + Right Time = Success.

How do you know the right action? It comes from deep inside of you. What's the right thing to do in a given situation. You know what it is.

But how do we know the right time? With our society turning over every 3-4 years and speeding up every day and having imperfect knowledge, it's getting harder and harder to judge timing. With business more and more resembling a random chess game where every day the players and the rules and the pieces change. In this landscape, you can know what the right time is to start a business as much as you can know the right time to buy a stock. And how is that?

You don't, is the answer. You make a reasonable move and then adjust as you go along. That move that looked right, may be all wrong and you die. Or that move that looked right may be right, and you're on the cover of Forbes Magazine as the entrepreneur of the year who won by defying the odds.

Entrepreneurship is jumping off a cliff and growing wings on the way down. That's what we have to do as entrepreneurs. See what the right thing to do is, try to get the best handle we can on timing, then jump and start growing. We will learn more about timing and what the right action is as we fall and then start to fly.

Remember, it's better to err on doing the right thing at the right time than doing nothing because we're scared.

What do you think of this? My goal is to produce more, skilled entrepreneurs. Is this helpful? Post a comment. I'd like to know. And check out my other enterprises. I'm on Twitter.com, Facebook, and Linkedin.

Entrepreneurship informs all of my professional activities. Entrepreneurial ideas are their life's blood. For my ideas on entrepreneurial real estate go to www.yourstopforrealestate.com/blog.

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