One hated history when one was a kid-and only with the onset of premature senility does one realise that one might want to learn it so as to not repeat the mistakes that others have made earlier.

There's a story that dates back to World War II. Perhaps it's an urban legend. Historians can verify it-I haven't tried. It sounds charming enough to be true, so I will live on with that assumption.

	Taking The Blinkers Off
	Going By The Book
	It's About Integrity

Cut to the fall of Berlin. The Allies are gorging themselves on the spoils of war, plucking away key assets for themselves. Fighting over these are the Americans and the Russians. Most in demand are German rocket scientists, including Werner von Braun, who built the V-2s that pulverised London.

The Americans, not unpredictably, get the cream, and the Russians get the rest. Both countries turn around and then charge their 'picks' with developing their respective space programs, with one objective: getting to the moon.

The Americans ask their wards what it would take to get there. The scientists answer: years of work, accurate measurements and computation of gravitational forces, orbits, planetary positions, thrust, direction and more, all to calculate exactly when to launch the rocket, in what direction, and with exactly what force. The response: go ahead, do your research and planning, and do what it takes.

The Russians ask the same question of their crew. And get the same answer. But the Russian response was: how can we do it faster and cheaper? The team put their heads together, and came back with a thought. What if we just send a rocket in the general direction of the moon, and put in little thrusters that will correct its course over the mission, and keep guiding it while it's on its way?

Cut to 1959. A Russian rocket hits the moon. The Americans trudge in a long three years later.

I often ask the people I work with to ''be Russian and not American'' in the way they run their business. You cannot calculate and plan every single thing before you launch your next effort. You're far likelier to succeed if you take a good look around you, take a deep breath, get a general idea of where you need to go, and just start moving. It's not that your brain stops functioning once you're on your way. You get better information while you're in motion-and can point yourself more accurately at a moving target the closer you get to it. Not ready, aim, fire-but ready, fire, aim.

I was reminded of this when I read that some consultants had put together a 10-year business plan and presented it to banks to refinance a textile business in Gujarat. Ten years? If someone shows me even a five-year business plan, I look for signs of either inebriation, a liking for ms Excel, an MBA, or all three-nothing else can explain this disconnect with reality.

Forget even three-year plans-which, at best are indicative of a swag (Stupid Wild Ass Guess) attempt at imagining the future. A one-year plan is perhaps somewhere in the vicinity of being marginally believable. I believe the best long-term strategy is a collection of good short-term strategies. And you simply cannot predict next year's, or next season's short-term strategies.

So why do businesses go through the rigmarole of dreaming up these numbers? Primarily because financing institutions-all banks and most VCs included- have similar disconnects with reality. A few years of experience will tell you that you simply cannot predict future revenues of companies or market situations. Unfortunately, it is these few years in the field that are missing from the resumes of our fund-disbursers.

In the absence of experience, in steps Excel. A spreadsheet then becomes the preferred shared hallucination that guides business decisions. If you are in a bank or VC fund, or a company that hopes to get money out of the former two, enjoy your charting program and the resultant business plan. Enter it for the Booker fiction prize if you like, because your predicted growth curves are about as real as Pamela Anderson's.

But if you're in a real business, stay away from predicting the future. Spend your time running your company, unless of course, you have years to waste.

Mahesh Murthy, an angel investor, heads Passionfund. He earlier ran Channel V and, before that, helped launch Yahoo! and Amazon at a Valley-based interactive marketing firm. Reach him at Mahesh@passionfund.com.