In my book, The Strategic Leader: New Tactics for a Globalizing World, I present the tactic of Running for Daylight.  Basically it means to know where the goal line is, preplan, run in place for a while, and when an opening occurs pounce on it vigorously. In the book, I identified the tactic by observing that the same people were always first to receive the incentives being offered by the organization.  Basically they knew what was happening, where they were going, and were ready with a plan when the door opened.