Luck AND effort

I'm intrigued by the issues laid out through Steven Levitt's and Stephen Dubner's Freakonomics blog and other writings regarding "how people get good at whatever they're good at" (by practicing it!).  Their May 7 2006 New York Times magazine article discusses research that says practice really does make all the difference in the eventual outcome of an effort.  "Of course!" I said smugly to myself.  "That's why building one's expertise is such a competitively astute thing to do . . . and creating the infrastructure to support the renewal of expertise is critical . . . " (blah blah blah - can you just hear me getting on my soapbox?). 

Not surprisingly, almost immediately the critics started pointing out the role of randomness and luck in success.  In this case, I think we should distinguish between dumb luck -- the kind that is so coincidental that effort had nothing to do with the lucky occurrence -- and designed luck.  Dumb luck is finding the $100 bill on the sidewalk.  Designed luck happens when you have intentionally put yourself into a favorable situation, and you were prepared to succeed. 

Designed luck happens when you bump into that unbelievable prospect because you were at that unbelievable conference because you proposed a fantastic speech to the conference planner a year ago. 

Designed luck happens when you continually put out a series of thoughtful blog posts and a respected influencer posts an endorsement comment, all because you made sure you linked to all the right blogs and utilized the many networking tools available to spread your virtual marketplace footprint.

So, yes, I believe that professional service firms have to "deliberately practice" their marketplace strategies.  This means knowing when to pursue "dumb luck" and when to stick with the original designed strategy, which you know will put you in line to capture the coincidences that will inevitably occur.  Whether you're a professional services marketer or practitioner, think about how this looks in real situations, when a seemingly fantastic marketing opportunity comes up that actually fits in nowhere.  I've seen many practitioners argue strongly for hopping on board with on these "coincidences," even though no one saw them coming.  Savvy marketers need to offer some critical thinking here, asking themselves and their colleagues: "Wait a minute, if we truly didn't see this one coming, is it really so significant that we need to derail our intentions?  How come we've never considered this so-called marketing opportunity before?" 

I remain a fan of the Freakonomics term "deliberate practice," and fact-based intentional marketing plans that are worked on, day in and day out.  I don't think marketers should "believe in the future," as much as they should "believe the future in."  Luck does happen; but the best future requires luck and effort.

So how come it appears that so many professional service firm leaders appear so willing to drop or derail their intentionally developed marketing plans to run toward the "lucky marketing coincidence?"  Is it because they don't put as much stock in the firm's marketing strategies as they should?  (If so, why not?)  Is it because they don't believe that dumb luck is usually just that - dumb?  Is boredom a factor here, and pedantic implementation of a (probably very good) marketing plan is just dull? 

Folks, how well do your firms do at the "deliberate practice" of marketing?