One of my favorite words in football is the “audible.” It’s the term for when the quarterback changes the play when they are already at the line of scrimmage (or under the center). An audible is done because the quarterback sees something in the defense that makes him believe that the play they had planned in the huddle isn’t the best one and they are going to go with a different one. 

I don’t know the statistics, but it seems like only the best quarterbacks get the “permission” to call an audible. It doesn’t happen in peewee football, it probably doesn’t happen much in high school football, and only the best quarterbacks in college would be given the permission to go off the plan of the coaches calling the plays. Quarterbacks like Peyton Manning, Tom Brady, and that guy who plays for the Packers ;-) audible all the time. (I work with a lot of companies in Wisconsin—just want to make sure they are paying attention.) 

Flexibility and responsiveness are praised in our culture. We like to hear stories of businesses that took big risks and moved very quickly, seemingly making every decision in real-time. Real business success doesn’t actually happen like that. In fact, the printers who are absolutely thriving in today’s consolidating market are doing the hard work of building repeatable processes that continuously improve. It can be considered boring to many. You analyze a process, document it, optimize it, run it for some time, and analyze it again; rinse and repeat.