Planning to fail, again?

Solid plans make everything that follows fit a seamless flow to the outcomes we want. And it’s always a great time to plan.

But there is something about January that brings planning onto the agenda of most professionals.

Unfortunately, just like most New Years’ resolutions, most of the the fruits of this burst of planning effort will hit the ground dead.

Why? Perhaps the biggest reason is that they mostly avoid setting specific outcomes and results as their focus and objectives. Instead we see stuff like:

“Increase dialogue with joint venture partners“; or “Build our presence with Generation Y through social media expansion.” Compare these with objectives such as “Increase revenue on women’s fashion shoes by six percent; or “Lower staff turnover to two percent.”

The first two are activities and need to serve results, not masquerade as results.

Too often in planning we are impatient to talk about what we will do that is better or different. This is seductive, but avoiding the foundation of fully and specifically establishing the outcomes we want leads to failure down the track.

Let’s make 2017 the success we deserve by basing our activities on the outcomes we really want.