In 1871, Prussian Field Marshal Helmuth von Moltke wrote, “No plan of operations extends with any certainty beyond the first encounter with the main enemy forces. Only the layman believes that in the course of a campaign he sees the consistent implementation of an original thought that has been considered in advance in every detail and retained to the end.”

In 1987, boxer Mike Tyson had a pithier version: “Everybody has plans until they get hit for the first time.”

However you like to say it, the principle is the same: even the best plans require a level of flexibility, adaptation, and awareness of changing conditions.

Plans in hand, we still have to think on our feet.

“Stay the course” is great advice. Until it’s not.