I'm fast. Others are faster.

This watercolor painting is available for sale.

When our local swimmer and fly specialist Joseph Schooling won a bronze at the swimming World Championships in 2015, it was considered a sensational moment in Singapore sport. Two years later, the same medal colour carries far less shine.

The one-sided result – the winner Caeleb Dressel was almost a second faster than Schooling and the Singaporean's time was 0.44sec off his personal best. In swimming, every split second counts and our poster boy has failed to repeat his stunt after winning last year's historic first Olympic gold for our country.
 
Schooling acknowledged his podium finish in Saturday's 100m butterfly final as "a setback" as he went into this meet with high expectations (targeting wins in the 50m fly, which he finished fifth, and the 100m fly which he finished third in a tie with British swimmer James Guy).

 

Schooling’s coach, Eddie Reese, the 76-year-old head coach at the University of Texas, where Schooling studies and trains sould be busy right now analysing his charge’s performance and determining what had gone wrong and draft the next course of actions. This is akin to a post-mortem after an event.

Setting objectives is easy.
Planning what to do and how to achieve them is not difficult. But if results didn’t show, it just means one thing: the plan didn’t work, it’s time to change something. Your mentor and coach can tell what was not right and what changes are needed. Ultimately, it’s the owner’s self determination and discipline to make the changes and get it work. This theory only makes sense if you’re the sole owner to the problem. In real organizations, your proposed plan could work if your boss likes you. If not, live with the problems like many organizations till you find a better way out.