Planning is not an event

This has been a very productive year for me. Though it still has a few days in it every day is full of speaking engagements and training commitments. I have made good my promise to devote a lot more time to studies this year and still able to accommodate a lot of invitations for keynotes and in-house training the year round. Next year might just be as busy or even busier as spaces in my calendar are filling up. As I looked back I realized that all these activities done is a result of effective planning the year before. 

Many of my clients have done or are doing their planning strategies for next year. And then the one thought that entered my mind is this: planning is not an event. Most people think that planning involves making future decisions and rightly so but decisions exist only in the present. I have heard consultants say that you and I must have overarching goals that add up to a vision for the future, but the immediate question that faces the organization is not what to do tomorrow. The question is, “What must we do today to achieve results?”

A couple of years ago, I remember listening to Tom Peters ranting and raving that if your business organization still has one of those “yearly planning and strategic activities”  then you may be hopelessly inadequate to meet everyday demands as a result of rapid changes. Planning therefore is not just a one day thing or a three-day activity conducted in a plush resort outside the city or the work place. The dean of modern day management Peter Drucker says: “Planning is the continuous process of strengthening what works and abandoning what does not, of making risk-taking decisions with the greatest knowledge of their potential effect, of setting objectives, appraising performance and results through systematic feedback, and making ongoing adjustments as conditions change.

The problem with viewing planning as an event is that the people involved in the process might just go over the rituals of the event and fail to dig deep into important issues needed to build the business. Effective planning comes when there is great debate and argument over issues and decisions until a consensus is made. Drucker calls this the “Encouragement of constructive dissent.”

All first-rate decision makers have a very simple rule: “If you have a quick consensus on an important matter, don’t make the decision.” The organization’s decisions are important and risky and thus they are often controversial. Decision makers who shy away from controversy and would like to always be portrayed as the “good and gentle guy” will do the organization a great disfavor. At best he is merely trying to protect his “reputation”  or “image” at worst, his acclamation simply means he has not done the homework. Constructive dissent does not mean being controversial for controversy’s sake but being trustworthy; that there are no personal agenda involved. The old saying that goes all the way to Aristotle and later become the axiom in civilized society says: “In essentials unity, in action freedom, and in all things trust. Trust requires that dissent come out in the open.

I have had serious disagreements with certain personalities. I love to engage them in heated discussions, healthy debates and intense arguments but at the end of the day shake hands and work on a consensus and then walk out of the boardroom not only remaining as friends but also strengthening the friendship because the trust is there. What I am afraid of are people who appear agreeable, accommodating and friendly but at the end of the day carry personal agenda and interest that would not be beneficial for the organization but for himself alone. Your opinion versus mine can easily be taken as your good faith versus mine. Without proper encouragement, people have a tendency to avoid such difficult, but vital, discussions or turn them into underground feuds.

Every organization needs its nonconformist. It becomes vitally important to expand your vision by staying close to your customers, encouraging constructive dissent, being observant at the sweeping transformation taking place in society. Studying the way technology is changing the way business is done and in the process having the courage to change the mission, abandon programs that have outlived their usefulness and concentrate resources elsewhere. You and I need to match our opportunities with our competence and commitment plus the courage to abandon the very processes that have made us famous in the first place.

Planning is not an event. It is a continuous process. Learn the lessons offered by two great civilizations:

The Chinese say: “Dig a well before you are thirsty.”

The Greeks say: “Act quickly, think slowly.”

What I say is: Trust in God but work like crazy.  

(Click on to www.franciskong.com and send me your feedback or you can also listen to my radio program “Business Matters” aired 8:00a.m. and 6:30 p.m. weekdays over 98.7 dzFE-FM ‘The Master’s Touch’, the classical music station.)