I walked from the parking lot into the hospital. It was a long walk because I always try to park the farthest away from the door unless it’s raining. Good exercise and time to think.
The medical group that I was going to see was under pressure. One of its former members had jumped ship and aligned with a competitor. The hospital issued an RFP. The competitor became the golden haired group.
The group was pissed off. But they didn’t do much if anything about it. And now they talked and talked and talked and said they’d get back to me but in the end they decided not to do anything about it once more. At least I got exercise when I walked back to my car. They got nothing. They thought the price wasn’t right, but the price they paid was all that they had.
They lost the contract. Those people I met with lost their jobs. Some of them moved far away.
Some people say that failing to plan is planning to fail. I’m not so sure if that’s true because sometimes when you plan you make it too easy because you are afraid of setting a real goal, one that is slightly out of reach. For some, success can be as scary as failure. Go figure.
But I do know that there were many options for that group had they only begun to think about their future when it was still in their past. Covenants not to compete. Creating situations that lead to fiduciary duties. Lots of moves. If only they had invested in themselves. I think some of them had MBAs. They were geniuses.
