Do You Want to Win? Planning is Everything

Plans are nothing; planning is everything - Dwight D. Eisenhower, 5-Star General & 34th President of the United States of America

Everyone has the will to win, but very few have the will to prepare to win - Vince Lombardi, Pro Football Hall of Fame (never had a losing season)

We’re not going to dive deep into methodologies & processes on how to plan and measure progress (OKR’s, Strategic Alignment Pyramid, SWOT, etc.) in this post, but more so the importance of planning and why getting started now matters.

Planning is a critical skill for any leader to have in their arsenal and this all starts with understanding organizational objectives. The same goes for your own personal objectives/goals as well (outside of the workplace).? Whether you’re looking at it from a professional lens or a personal one, establishing strategy for achieving those goals using the resources available to you is critical.

Ultimately, planning is concerned with an endpoint - and what the path towards that endpoint is. However, before developing a plan, we must first identify and understand the organization's goals. What are we trying to achieve? Once we have a clear sense of what Long Term success/engagement looks like, we can decide what actionable items we need to achieve in the Short Term; in order to be on track to achieve our longer-term vision.

Have you ever dreamed of achieving something great that seemed impossible? That dream becomes just that - a dream. As human beings, we tend to lean more towards hopes and dreams rather than actions - hoping that someone or something will come along and achieve it for us. However, you’d be surprised at how easy you can turn that dream into a goal that can be attained. The problem is, nobody takes the time to write them down and work backwards to create action items that will get them there.??

There is a Harvard Business Review study that went into detail about the written & measured goals for organizations (applies to personal goals as well) that highlights the following “those who have goals/objectives written & measured are 10 times more successful than those without goals.” Thanks HBR - I don’t think it takes a PhD to understand common sense. How would you achieve success if you don’t know what you’re working towards and the steps towards achieving it? And as silly or obvious as this may sound - it’s fact and I’ve seen it in practice in organizations time and time again.

A LITTLE STORY FOR YOU…

I take you back one hundred and nineteen years to the year 1903 in Ottoman occupied Macedonia for this example once again. As mentioned before, I sometimes surface these extreme stories from historically documented events and the military dossier of my Great Grandfather. The purpose is to showcase important leadership skills, qualities, lessons, etc.

In a past post (Becoming a Leader: the Ten Commandments) I spoke about the early success of my Great Grandfather (Vangel), which eventually led him to receive the highest rank of Vojvoda (War-leader) and authority over the town of Maloviste. However, these were shorter term actionable objectives that stemmed from a more comprehensive plan - and when it’s an army of ~26,400 vs. ~2,876,000 in one of the more sophisticated empires in the world (Ottoman Empire) - you better have a damn good plan.

The overarching goal for the rebellion was simple… Freedom; establish an independent Macedonian state free from Ottoman control. Given the time frame and how the empire became notoriously more brutal over time (genocide), it was a generally agreed upon goal at this point. Using this as a long term narrative, strategic objectives were developed from there.

1. Income & Armaments - military build up to sustain the cause.
2. International Attention - gain the attention and support of Western powers to the atrocities being committed.
3. Hearts & Minds - win the support of regular citizens who are too scared of the empire to support the cause.
4. Create Consternation - insight fear, panic, and chaos in Ottoman ranks about legendary feats of the “Komita’s” (Guerilla army) to demotivate and frighten them.
5. Municipal Liberations - liberating districts and surrounding areas of army control to gain a foothold and safe haven for the army.

Once these overarching objectives were determined, it was now straightforward to plan more tactical and measurable goals that would feed into those overarching objectives. From previous posts, you may have gathered that my Great Grandfather’s goals as a leader were primarily related to Municipal Liberations and Creating Consternation amongst the Ottoman Empire’s army.? To make a long story short, he achieved what needed to be done so much so that he was placed on the Ottoman Empire’s most wanted list. The point being, there were many leaders who were responsible for steering the army in the right direction and to achieving the ultimate goal of freedom. Their actions did contribute to the eventual creation of an independent state (although briefly held) and later in history to the collapse of the Ottoman Empire - however none of the achievements across the Balkans could have been achieved without meticulous planning.

WHY THIS MATTERS…

The purpose and benefits to structured planning and objective setting from an organizational standpoint are many, but ultimately can be summarized to these points:

1. Keep you and your company aligned - it’s important to connect individual and team performance back to a shared set of company objectives. This way everyone knows we’re moving in the same direction.
2. Focus on what matters - encourages a “triage” process so that everyone can prioritize objectives and tasks that have the greatest impact.
3. Increase transparency - creates a culture of trust and visibility into everyone's plans, objectives, and impact.
4. Empowers your people - increased visibility gives everyone the context they need to make the best decision and shows everyone how their work is making an impact.
5. Creates a measuring stick for progress - helps illustrate how far along everyone is to achieving their goals
6. Helps accomplish the unexpected - dreams and difficult objectives are meant to be stretched beyond the threshold of what seems possible, so even if you don’t necessarily hit 100% of your target, you’ll still achieve remarkable results.

It’s important that every layer and individual of an organization has a plan on how they are moving the needle forward - whether they’re a part of a more tactical plan or a larger overarching initiative - success is dependent on the simultaneous coordination of these objectives.

Now, in a military capacity, planning can not only make a difference in completing a mission, but saving lives. However, from a business perspective, planning can be the difference between overall success or failure for an organization. Either way, it’s about achieving an ideal endpoint and winning - doesn’t matter what the example is.

So… Do you want to win?? Start planning!