“So, what’s the purpose of planning?” I asked again. “Specifically what’s the purpose of strategic planning. You talk about the uncertainty of the future?”
“You know, I am all for simplicity, but sometimes, the world is complex. There are all kinds of things that can affect our business. Looking ahead 30-60 days is easy. We know what projects we have, who the customers are, what materials we need and which team will do the work. But looking out three years, the conversation changes.”
“I will agree the conversation changes,” I nodded. “In what way?”
“When we look out three years, we don’t know what projects we will be working on, who our customers will be, what materials we will be using or even who will be on our team. All we can assume, is that we will still be in business, solving a customer’s problem.”
“So, what’s changed about the conversation?”
“Obviously, the Time Span. We are looking further out. But what has really changed is that we are no longer talking about concrete, tangible things. We are talking about uncertainty. It’s not easy to describe because it is a discussion about the future.”
“So, we are not talking about short term tactics, we are talking about long term concepts. And that’s why this conversation is unsettling. It is easy to talk about tangible, concrete things, but we are not used to talking conceptually.”
Tom, you just cleared it up for me!
I am currently involved in working with a team on Planning for 2012 into 2015.
And almost this same discussion happened, and the team kept pulling into seeking concrete things, and I kept trying to pull them into concepts (which made us both feel uncomfortable). The feedback I received was that the planning was too unstructured (which can mean that is was not concrete enough) becuase planning out 1-3 years will lead to symbolic, parallel thinking teadering on conceptual declarative.
Thanks Tom!
Mike, So, we cleared up the unsettling part. Now we have to work on exactly HOW do we talk conceptually. Stay tuned, next week. I have some ideas. -TF
It’s difficult to perform long term planning with the high level in management mobility. If a manager or executive is in their job longer than two years they take that as stagnation. That leaves you with short term thinkers doing long term planning. How the business actually operates is lost without some seasoned veterans.