Now we were getting somewhere. “Something would change?” I repeated.

“Well, yes,” Walter started. “We could do the same thing over and over, and be successful, until something changed.”

“So, when we talk about planning, what would be valuable to talk about. Where is the real value in planning?”

Walter was still hoping he hadn’t painted himself into a corner. “You’re right. The real value in planning is talking about what will change. Maybe that is what is unsettling about the process. We talk about change, things that might happen or might not happen, things we don’t know about. Then we attach a revenue number to it, like we are the most accurate weather forecaster in the world. That is the unsettling part.”

“Are you trying to do two things at cross purpose?”

Walter nodded again, “Yes, we talk about the uncertainty of the future and then try to nail down a black and white number all in the same sentence.”

“So, what good is planning?” I repeated. “What would happen if we did NO planning?”

“You know, that’s a great question. I don’t know that anything would change. To know what to do, tomorrow, we just have to look at what we did yesterday.”

“So, just look at yesterday, do the same thing again and we can expect the same result?” I summarized.

Walter nodded his head and chuckled, “Pretty much. And at the end of the year, our revenue number would be about the same, hopefully a little better.”

“So, how long could you keep that up?” I prodded. “I mean, successfully doing the same thing over and over and over? Could you do that, forever?”

“Well, not forever,” Walter smiled. “At some point, something will change.”

“Something will change?” I asked.

“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?”

“Here we go, again,” Walter shook his head. “The obligatory offsite strategic planning meeting.”

“I can tell you are not excited about the planning process,” I responded.

“It’s just that we spend two days jabbering, write some goals on a flip chart and then forget about it. It’s not that I don’t like the process, it’s just, at the end of the day, I don’t see the value.”

“You don’t see the value in jabbering, writing goals or following up? Which is it?” I asked.

“I mean, we create a revenue goal. It’s a nice number. But whether we reach that goal, has little to do with the fact that we write the number on a flipchart every December.”

“So, what happened when you shared your plan with the team?” I asked.

Lisa winced. “Share my plan? Well, yes, I was planning to roll it out next week. Should be a big kickoff.”

“So, everyone is on board with the plan?”

“Well, they don’t know about it, yet. I mean, they know about the project, but I plan to share the details during the kickoff,” Lisa assured.

“Lisa, did you discover anything new while you were creating this plan?”

She nodded, “This plan has some wrinkles in it. It will require some specific changes to our process.”

“Why didn’t you know that before the plan?” I pressed.

“I guess I always knew it, but I didn’t see it until I wrote it all out,” Lisa agreed.

“Do you think your team might discover some things when they see the plan all laid out?”

“I suppose.”

“Is there a possibility that those discoveries might wreck your big Kickoff?”

Lisa face revealed a slight stare of anxiety. “You’re right, but I have already scheduled the Kickoff Meeting.”

“So, change the name of the meeting from the Kickoff Meeting to the Plan Review Meeting.”

“It’s tough,” Andrea admitted. “During the recession, we significantly reduced our workforce. We had to. Our revenues were down 40 percent, now they are up 10 percent. We are hesitant to raise headcount in the face of optimism. How do we make our decisions about how many people we need in which roles?”

“Here’s a rule of thumb,” I replied. “Don’t organize around your previous metrics of headcount. Go back to ground zero and organize around the work. What is your core work? How is it performed? What does it take to create the output for the demand you forecast? Around your core work, what supervision is necessary? And for the future, who is necessary for planning, for contingencies and alternatives?”

Andrea was nodding. “Strip away all the noise and go back to the core?”

“And only create what is necessary.”

Ellen didn’t say a word.

“Have you ever wondered why Vision Statements all sound alike?” I asked.

Ellen was still quiet.

“A Vision Statement is designed to describe a picture of the future, and in most companies, a future that is three, four or five years out. The conversation changes. And we aren’t very good at it.”

Ellen moved her head to think.

“We are very good at describing reality in concrete terms. It’s when we begin to think out, into the future, that we begin to stumble. Most Vision Statements sound alike because we have never sat down to think, conceptually, about the future. The conversation changes from a concrete world to a conceptual world and our words begin to fail us.

“Some give up, saying all this planning is useless. It’s never right, things change, so what’s the point?

“Without change, we can get by, short cutting this exercise without much damage. But, in this time, with so much uncertainty, this conceptual planning becomes critical.”

“Interesting, our conversation switched from tangible decisions to an analogy about cookies,” I observed.

“Not just cookies, warm cookies,” Ellen corrected me. “It’s easy to plan for a project that will be completed in two weeks. We know who the suppliers are, what materials we need to purchase, what contractors have to be involved. But, when things move further into the future, it gets murky. I can pretty much tell you what our revenues will be in 2011, but the real question, is what decisions have to be made this year to position us for 2013-2014?”

“You’re right,” I agreed. “Something changes about the discussion when we look that far out. In the near term, we can identify, with some accuracy, what is most likely to happen. It is a very concrete discussion. But, the further we go into the future, those tangible items get fuzzy. More than fuzzy. Those concrete elements turn into conceptual elements. And it is a completely different conversation.”

“Therein, lies the dilemma,” I nodded.

“Absolutely,” Ellen replied. “And it’s not just the uncertainty about what might happen with this customer or that project. There are larger things going on. There is uncertainty about taxes and markets. My customers don’t want to make commitments to me and I can’t make commitments to my suppliers.”

“So, what are you going to do? How are you going to plan?” I asked.

Ellen was silent, then finally, thoughtfully, spoke, “It’s not so much about making this decision or that decision. It’s about position. How can we put ourselves in a position that keeps our options open? More than contingency planning. Really keeping long-term moves as viable alternatives.”

“Having your cake and eating it, too?”

Ellen laughed. “It’s not a finished cake. It’s having all the ingredients to make a cake, or a pie, or a dozen warm cookies.”

“Why is this so difficult?” I asked. We were diligently poring over our business plan for 2011.

“Part of it, it’s difficult to look at the larger picture when you have your nose down in the dirt,” Ellen replied. “Our work volume is increasing, but we are not committed to increasing our overhead. We don’t trust the market. This is very complex.”

“But, your company is used to dealing with complexity,” I nodded encouragement.

“This is different. Detailed complexity, we can handle. I mean, we have a staff of computer geniuses, who can write code to handle a hundred thousand details. But, this is different. You can’t write a computer program to deal with this complexity.”

“Why not?” I pressed.

“This complexity is not detailed complexity. And that’s why this planning exercise is so difficult,” Ellen shook her head. “This complexity comes from uncertainty. You cannot write a computer program to deal with things you do not know.”