The following post is from the blog archives from a year ago (originally published on June 4, 2015 http://www.5oclockreflections.com/plan-with-purpose/).
I love the Peter Drucker notion, that “Long-range planning does not deal with future decisions, but with the future of present decisions.” The irony is that large organizations get obsessed with long term planning, and the smaller ones do no planning at all. There has to be a happy medium. Annual plans that are manageable and make sense.
“I don’t want a silver bound book for my shelf,” a CEO client once told me — “I want solutions.”
Unfortunately too many plans gather dust on executive book shelves, because they are not usable. The key to planning is to make plans simple, transparent, and use friendly.
The key to success is skillful implementation. Time to get to work.