Fighting business fires is a process. Business planning is a process. 

We choose the processes we experience and live with.

A business-planning meeting is a situation. An office fire fight is a situation.

We choose the business situations we experience and live with.

We get bogged down in unimportant details, false urgencies, and interpersonal stumblings.

So, from time to time, we need to step back and demystify our business.

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Here's a simple-but-accurate way of looking at business:

Business contains only 3 things: People, Process, & Situations.

Processes and situations always involve people; people are integral. While this fact seems obvious as we sit and think about it, it is often lost during the heat of business fire fights. 

People, processes, and situations always provide the opportunity for forethought. We choose whether or not to apply that forethought.

And...

"He who has not first laid his foundations may be able with great ability to lay them afterwards, but they will be laid with trouble to the architect and danger to the building."

That's a quote from a book that has survived 5 centuries: Niccolo Machiavelli's 'The Prince' [written in 1513 and first published in 1532]. Granted, Machiavelli was writing about political leadership rather than business. Granted too, Machiavelli was writing about people - those wanting leadership positions and those wanting to keep leadership positions.

And, in Machiavelli's day, no question, the blades of confusion cut deep.