“Then, what’s the purpose?” I prodded. “What is the purpose for planning? What is the value, spending two days jabbering?”

Walter was quietly making sure he hadn’t painted himself into a corner. “Okay, the planning process has virtue. But the process is unsettling. We call it strategic planning, but I don’t think we talk much about strategy. We try to create an annual revenue number and then talk about why the production line broke down last week. That’s not strategy.”

“So, talking about the production line is unsettling?” I asked.

“No. We can talk about the production line. It’s just that planning is a discussion about the future. We are supposed to create this vision of the future, but we talk about stuff that happened last week. And no matter how great we paint this picture of the future, the production line will always break down, or our customer’s project will be delayed, or a competitor will come in with a cheaper price. What good is planning?”