The 12 Week Year: Get More Done in 12 Weeks than Others Do in 12 Months

Chapter 15

Installing Process Control

The 12 Week Year starts with a vision, and from that vision, you establish a set of 12 week goals. Based on those goals you develop a 12 week plan. Then comes process control.

Mike Tyson said that everyone has a plan until they get hit in the mouth. Process control is a set of tools and events that help you work your plan, even when you get hit in the mouth.

Making Sure Things Get Done

It’s not enough to have a vision and a plan. If your goals and plan are designed to help you achieve a higher level of performance, then you most likely have specific tactics that are new actions for you. New actions are almost always uncomfortable. That’s one of the things that makes change so difficult. It’s one thing to identify the actions needed to create a better result; it’s a whole other thing to consistently do them. Without structural and environmental support, follow through becomes a constant exercise of willpower. Relying on willpower occasionally can work, but as studies have shown, willpower has a fatigue factor, and as we’ve all experienced, sometimes we have the willpower and sometimes we don’t.

If you are going to achieve what you are capable of, you can’t leave it up to willpower alone. Process control uses tools and events to create support structures that can augment, and in some cases take the place of, willpower. I can promise you that Michael Phelps, who holds more gold medals than any other Olympian, had days when he didn’t feel like ...