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A theme of these blogs, whether they have been about personal finances or issues facing business owners, has been the importance of planning.

I am a bit of a movie buff, and I particularly like Alfred Hitchcock films.  I wouldn’t consider myself and expert, but there is a story about ‘Hitch’ that I particularly like.

Picture the scene.  It is the first day of shooting a new Hitchcock movie.  Everything is in place. Costumes are designed, the actors have learnt their lines in anticipation.  The cameras are set up, and Hitch’s chair sits, empty, in the middle of the set.

Hitch walks onto the set, says hello to everyone and then sits down in his big director’s chair with the name ‘Hitchcock’ on the back. Everyone is waiting for his instruction.

Hitchcock looks around him, and then claps his hands and loudly declares ‘well, that’s another film finished’.  

Looks of bewilderment on everyone’s faces.  This is the first day of shooting, what on earth is he talking about?

What Hitchcock meant was that the film was as good as completed.  He had the script written, the music was written, and he had storyboarded the entire movie.  There was not a shot that would end up in the film that he hadn’t already thought of.

As far as Hitchcock was concerned, the movie was completed.  All that remained was a relatively tedious process of actually filming it.

The parallels for our personal finances and business lives are, I think, obvious.  Of course, we can’t map out our future like Hitchcock could control his films.  Nevertheless, we can plan and prepare.

If a business was planned in the way that Hitchcock planned a movie, one of two things would happen.  Firstly, everything could happen as expected, in which case the plan could be followed and success would result. 

Secondly, something could happen that was not expected.  In this case, the plan could be modified, and the unexpected event handled far more easily.

If life was a movie, I would want Hitchcock to be directing it, but with perhaps a few less birds.  And I might be less likely to take a shower.

On second thoughts……