Golden Oldies: Hate The Plan, Love The Planning
by Miki Saxon
Poking through 11+ years of posts I find information that’s as useful now as when it was written.
Golden Oldies is a collection of the most relevant and timeless posts during that time.
KG Charles-Harris sent me an article about goals, neuroscience, and “Temporal Myopia”— the inability in the decision-making process to consider the long-term consequences of an action. Good information that scientifically confirms the idea that the best way to accomplish a long-term goal is to break it down into short-term pieces that provide daily gratification.
It reminded me of this post and the real importance of planning. Rereading it I can say without reserve that the most important point you can take away is found in the final sentence.
Read other Golden Oldies here.
Plans are made and remade over and over again, so why plan at all if it’s going to keep changing? Because the most valuable part is the act of planning, not the result of it.
Planning forces you to think in depth—an often painful process that most of us would rather avoid.
For example, it is impossible to plan an upcoming product launch without considering all the things that could go wrong simultaneously with defining the steps to take and the results you seek.
The discussion (even if it’s with yourself) engendered by stating that you are going to do A forces you to consider what will happen if A doesn’t accomplish what you want or what to do if doing A becomes an impossibility for whatever reason (time, money, manpower, etc.)
It is plan-the-verb that distinguishes the winners from the also-rans and it is the verb that keeps you ahead of the competition.
Just as importantly, it is plan-the-verb that should be pushed down throughout your organization.
This is accomplished by giving the goal to the next level down and asking them to plan how they will achieve it. They, in turn, should create multiple goals from it and pass those down to their direct reports and so on down the organizational ladder all the way to the lowest level.
At each handoff the goal is divided again and again and each person has to plan how to achieve it with the help of their group.
Always plan in pencil, because plan-the-noun needs to be a living organism that grows and changes, just as a tree bends in the wind to avoid breaking—just be sure to recycle the paper on which plan-the-noun is printed.
The benefits of this process are enormous, first, because it makes plan-the-verb a part of your corporate culture, as well as a core competency, which gives your company the ability to react far more swiftly as the waves and eddies of the economy and your industry constantly change your market.
Plan-the-verb boosts initiative, encourages taking responsibility and speeds professional growth, providing you with a stronger in-house bench from which to grow.
It is always detrimental to value the noun—plan, leader, manager—more than the verb—plan, lead, manage—but in the business world it can be devastating.
Image credit: Robert Nunnally
