D'PIE: Diagnose, Plan, Implement, Evaluate

Today I'll tell you about a very simple, yet very effective technology you can use. It's a problem-solving, diagnosing, goal-setting kind of device—I call it a technology—but it's just so simple. It consists of four items, and you can remember them by the acronym D'PIE.

I call it that because we all want the pie, the whole pie, "d’ pie," and it helps us remember these things in order. And those are, with any goal-setting, problem-solving sequence:

“D”—Diagnose. Diagnose exactly where you're at, exactly where you want to go.

Then, “P”—Plan. And of course, planning is a process of having done your diagnosing, seeing what the problem is, when it's a problem, why it's a problem, what you need to solve, and what you want to have happen. Now you start connecting the dots between the two ends—where you're at, and where you want to be. You start evaluating what you need to do in-between. In other words, there's a timeline on a lot of these things.

So we go from diagnose, to plan, to “I”, Implement. Put your plan into action. Now, here's where a lot of people fall down, because procrastination—that's not what that “P” stands for!—is easy for a lot of people. And a lot of people are afraid they'll be judged. And if you're an employee, you will be; if you're an entrepreneur, the market will judge you. You'll get results either way, and that's the whole point.

The final “E” is Evaluate. You put your plan into action, you implement it, and you will get feedback. And then you evaluate—you've got to have sensual acuity, environmental acuity, and know if it's working or not. If you're not getting the results you wanted or if you're getting unexpected results, then you tinker with it, adjust it—and, of course, you'll put it back into action again. You go all the way through it again.

Evaluation could be a form of diagnosis, and then you're re-planning, and you're re-implementing, and then re-evaluating once again.

A lot of times people say, "I like to solve the problem once and then be done with it." Well, it just doesn't work that way, because the environment is always changing. Think about if you were, for instance, into computers or software, and you built a complicated software program. The next thing you know it's needing updates, and your competitors are coming along and you've got to update. All technology is improving.

So just think: you're a modern person, and you can do this forever and ever because of optimization. The best that you can be is what you're looking for.

The environment changes. When it does, you change, too!