Let’s pick up where we left off last time. Let’s talk a little more about myths associated with planning.
Cheering section………………………….
Certainly planning will give you lots to cheer about but be careful. Planning is not a spectator sport. You can’t sit on the sidelines and just watch. You are going to have to get your feet wet/hands dirty/etc. You have to be involved because it won’t just happen. And don’t go out and hire someone to do it for you. That would be the kiss of death. You may have heard it said that planning is a journey and it’s like a roadmap.
Well, that’s a lie. It is just NOT true. To say it is a journey implies that it will come to an end and that is not going to happen. I have been speaking about the planning process and that is how I want you to think about it. If you are thinking about a nicely bound document sitting on your library shelf, forget it. Certainly you will be creating some documents in the process but there’s more to it than that. Planning is a mindset, not a type set. It’s not a one-time event that has a finish line. And get the idea of a roadmap out of your head. A roadmap is just a list of alternatives: origins, destinations and routes. To think this way may even stifle your planning effort. It may limit your creativity. For sure, it will keep us from thinking outside the box and you all know that outside the box is where all the really great results lie.
Finally, and then I’ll get off my soapbox. There are some pitfalls associated with planning. You’ve no doubt heard the expression “all talk and not walk”. Well, you will have to agree that this discussion about management and planning has been very logical and you are basically agreeing with what I have had to say. And it sounds good and it is something we should do. The danger is that we could go on talking about it or you could even go on talking about it to yourself (and the team) and never get around to actually doing it. One of my previous employers was really good at this and they still (after many years) don’t have a plan. Secondly, and I have to be careful about this one. I mentioned Prov 18:13 earlier and that we will be faced with lots of decisions along the planning way. It’s important that we do our homework well but we must be careful that we don’t get so caught up in the number crunching that we fail to make the decisions we need to make. I personally love the number crunching but I hate the decisions. I could tell you a long story from my past (consulting business) but we don’t have the space and you don’t have the time. As long as we are talking about making decisions, and I know this seems obvious, but we have to be willing to make what will probably be some really tough decisions along the planning way.
MOST IMPORTANT OF ALL.
You have to be committed to the planning process or you will fail, guaranteed. You will fail at planning and if you fail to plan properly, you will fail in your management responsibility as a steward, servant, slave. So, what do I mean by commitment. Remember what you read on PAGE 2 about Clifford Calverly? You have to be willing to get in the planning “wheelbarrow”. That’s what I mean by commitment.
