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DEVELOPING NEW BUSINESS IDEAS204

Planning then resolves those blocks. It might overturn them, mitigate
their impact, circumvent them or even transform them into an
advantage. It might make you flex and develop your business idea
further to take account of an immutable obstacle.

But effective planning will stop you from having to cross your fingers
and just hope that it will be alright on the night.

Because if you do, it won’t.

Frederick Smith – overcoming the obstacles to
Fedex153

Frederick Smith exemplifies the ability to overcome,

circumvent and turn to one’s advantage potential obstacles to
implementation.

Frederick Smith was born into a family steeped in transport – his
grandfather had been a steamboat captain on the Mississippi river and
his enterprising father had made significant money from such initiatives
as establishing the earliest Dixie Greyhound bus lines. Having lost his
father at an early age, Smith was brought up by his mother, whose
significant influence included the development of his love of reading
broadly and deeply which he always retained. As Smith later remarked:
‘There are a lot of good lessons in history, and other peoples’
experiences in the past, that could be exactly the solution to the problem
you’re looking for.’154

At the age of 15, he started his first business, Ardent Record Company,
recording songs in a small garage with two friends. Around this time, he
also learnt to fly. Later he studied political science and economics at Yale
University, where in 1965 he wrote a paper on the logistical challenges
facing firms in the newly emerging information technology sector. Given
that companies could not afford to maintain large inventories of expensive
spare parts for computers and other data-processing machines, Smith
argued that an opportunity existed for an overnight door-to-door delivery
system to enable the leading computer companies to offer reliable after-
sales service. Legend has it that the paper received only a modest grade.
He let the idea lie for the time being.

After serving one ‘hitch’ in ground combat in Vietnam for which he was
highly decorated, Smith flew 230 air reconnaissance missions as a US