“Failing to plan is planning to fail.” It's not quite that simple

“Failing to plan is planning to fail.”?

Maybe true but I wish to challenge that axiom.

Having a plan is the easy bit in my view.? I see many examples of nice looking plans sitting on walls in lunch rooms or intranets.? Be that plans at a business level, practice area, market sector or client. Lots of ambition and rarely is the plan wrong or worthless.? But too often the creation of the plan is an end in itself.? A compliance exercise that is ticked off before we go back to our day jobs of chasing work and delivering for clients plus the growing list of obligations all of us have day to day.

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Creating plans

I love facilitating strategic planning sessions with my clients.

It’s one of the things I am asked to do, especially at this time of year as a new financial year approach.?

My focus is always on value for my client. Value is rarely as simple of creating a good plan. Value is about outputs, results, and change in the weeks to come. ?

So the mindset I adopt with my clients from the outset of any planning process,

“we are here to achieve the implementation of a plan”

as opposed to just “we are here to create a plan.”

Therefore the axiom that I think rings truer than the title of this article is a slightly longer, and arguably less readable, sentence.

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“Failing to create a plan that deliberately sets out TO ACTUALLY ACTION AND IMPLEMENT that plan is planning to fail.”

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What is your experience of planning?

I rang (yes – used the phone for its original intended purpose!) several clients yesterday to gather some statements regarding business planning of any kind in their organisation.

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Do any of these statements ring a bell for you?? Let’s chat if they do.

“We create plans every year but they often make little impact on what we actually do afterwards”

“Planning feels like a compliance exercise more than a valuable one”

“All of the people responsible for implementing the plan are not always involved in the planning process”

“We create lofty goals to grow this or expand that but the objectives we create are not always measurable”

“We create goals and objectives but there is a lack of action.? When we achieve growth it is not always because of that plan we created. We probably would have got there anyway!”

“Those responsible for implementing the plan are not given the time, coaching or support to do so”

“Practice area plans focus too much on marketing to new clients and not enough on pleasing our existing clients, because that is what the Board seem to want to see”

“There is a cynicism in the business about planning as it feels like the plans we made last year have just sat in a drawer for 12 months”

“12 month client plans is too short a timeframe but that's what Leadership want.? We should plan for a longer term than that”

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Quite a list!?

Planning takes time and I believe rightly so.? But giving time to anything should give an ROI.? My phone calls yesterday suggest that ROI is lacking.

So what can we do?

The solution to many of the statements above lies in mindset.? A mindset that serves as a guiding principle for any planning process.

Starting out with a mindset and guiding principle that

“we are creating a plan that is about achieving action and measurable implementation”

as opposed to “we are creating a plan.”?

Keeping that guiding principle front and centre with all stakeholders drives an approach that is about achieving results and outcomes and therefore an ROI on the planning process.

Value more than compliance.

Outputs more than inputs.

Your comments welcome on your experience with planning, its value or otherwise in your business.