Planning is a big deal to me. I talk about it all the time. It’s probably the most common topic on this blog.
Yesterday, I was in the office of a State Senator, and on the wall was a quote from Dwight D Eisenhower (Ike).
“Plans are useless, but planning is indispensable.”
The more I researched it, the cloudier the truth about the quote became. It’s likely he never said it exactly the way I saw it hanging on the wall. His Vice President, Richard Nixon, cemented the quote’s legend in his 1962 book “Six Crises.” It was likely a variation on a letter Eisenhower wrote in 1950 to a U.S. diplomat, and Eisenhower himself credited the idea to an anonymous soldier.
I’m going to move forward with the rest of my life as if Eisenhower said it.
It’s short, sweet, and it encapsulates my thinking exactly.
So does Mike Tyson’s quote, “Everybody has a plan until they get punched in the mouth.”
Quoting a highly regarded military hero and former President makes you seem more intelligent and refined than quoting a boxer widely considered a little crazy.
What I like about it is how the concept prioritizes the planning process over the actual plan.
A good planning process involves figuring out what you want to happen, determining the steps (actions) you need to take, determining who is going to do what, and finally determining how you are going to measure success.
Once you have a plan and start moving forward, you will encounter obstacles. Some will be things you considered, while others will be things you didn’t anticipate. A good process will have you ready to adjust to those obstacles. If you fail to plan for them, they can derail the entire enterprise.
When the people around me object to planning, I always wonder why they want to live a life built on being reactionary. It is chaotic.
I get that many people, myself included, love to problem-solve. But you don’t need chaos to enter the equation just to satisfy a hunger for problem-solving. A strong planning process gives you plenty of opportunities for problem-solving. You will impress the world when a problem arises, and you have well-thought-out solutions ready. The most likely solution will be something you came up with and rejected during the planning process.
Another thing people often forget is that we aren’t rated by how well we follow the plan. We are rated by the end results. In life, we are required to follow certain rules, but we aren’t required to follow a plan.
A plan is simply a map. When you hit a detour with a map, you adjust. If you don’t have a map, you won’t be able to adjust, you will simply be lost.
