Leaders often build plans that are wildly optimistic and are then surprised when they don’t hit their goals. In life, things rarely go perfectly or as part of the “best case scenario,” so anticipate that going in. Let’s say you imagine that you’d need 20 high-performing sales associates to meet your numbers. Great, but someone could turn out to be a low performer. Perhaps some on the team quits, or someone has a health problem. The list of things that could derail your plan is nearly limitless. So, build your plan to hire 26 sales people, get them all trained and deployed, knowing full well that they won’t all work out. With this, you’ve effective planned to end up with at least the minimum number of successful people needed and you’ll be able to reach your goal as anticipated. Heck, you may even over-deliver..