Planning is guessing

Unless you're a fortune-teller, long-term business planning is a fantasy. There are

just too many factors that are out of your hands: market conditions, competitors,

customers, the economy, etc. Writing a plan makes you feel in control of things

you can't actually control.

Why don't we just call plans what they really are: guesses. Start referring to

your business plans as business guesses, your financial plans as financial

guesses, and your strategic plans as strategic guesses. Now you can stop

worrying about them as much. They just aren't worth the stress.

When you turn guesses into plans, you enter a danger zone. Plans let the past

drive the future. They put blinders on you. "This is where we're going because,

well, that's where we said we were going." And that's the problem: Plans are

inconsistent with improvisation.

And you have to be able to improvise. You have to be able to pick up

opportunities that come along. Sometimes you need to say, "We're going in a

new direction because that's what makes sense today."

The timing of long-range plans is screwed up too. You have the most

information when you're doing something, not before you've done it. Yet when

do you write a plan? Usually it's before you've even begun. That's the worst time

to make a big decision.

Now this isn't to say you shouldn't think about the future or contemplate how

you might attack upcoming obstacles. That's a worthwhile exercise. Just don't

feel you need to write it down or obsess about it. If you write a big plan, you'll

most likely never look at it anyway. Plans more than a few pages long just wind

up as fossils in your file cabinet.

Give up on the guesswork. Decide what you're going to do this week, not this

year. Figure out the next most important thing and do that. Make decisions right

before you do something, not far in advance.

It's OK to wing it. Just get on the plane and go. You can pick up a nicer shirt,

shaving cream, and a toothbrush once you get there.

Working without a plan may seem scary. But blindly following a plan that has

no relationship with reality is even scarier.