“We must be willing to get rid of the life we’ve planned, so as to have the life that is waiting for us.” – Joseph Campbell Planning is an important part of leadership. No organization was ever successful for very long without taking time to plan for its future. Regardless of size, purpose, location, or … Read more
“It doesn’t pay to worry. If you went through last year’s files marked “important”, chances are the only things you’d keep are the paper clips.” – Robert Orben What keeps you up at night? There’s a laundry list of things leaders can lay awake worrying about if they choose. Markets, people, products, customers, technology, civil … Read more
“Predicting rain doesn’t count. Building arks does.” – Warren Buffett One of the things you’re supposed to do as a leader is think about the future. It’s why there are so many books/articles/podcasts/whatever on planning, strategic planning, long-term planning, etc. Everybody knows it’s important and understands that it’s something they probably should be doing. Some … Read more
“Strategic planning is worthless – unless there is first a strategic vision.” – John Naisbitt Last week in this space the conversation was around the idea that at some point everybody has to stop “hunkering down” and start thinking about the future. That means vision, strategy, all that good stuff. Based on some responses I … Read more
“It’s a bad plan that admits of no modification.” – Publilius Syrus It’s the understatement of the year to say that we live in a world that’s constantly changing. Right now, most leaders feel like things change so fast that before they understand the current situation, it changes, and they never get caught up. Some … Read more
“In preparing for battle I have always found that plans are useless, but planning is indispensable.” – Dwight Eisenhower One of the things I’ve heard leaders say a lot over the past two strange years is that there is so much confusion and uncertainty that it’s impossible to plan for the future. I get it. … Read more
“Here is the world. Beautiful and terrible things will happen. Don’t be afraid.” – Frederick Buechner Last week in this space we talked about finding your passion and then spending your energy following it. If you’re not doing what you’re passionate about, it’s physically impossible to be the best you there is. You just won’t … Read more
“There is no such thing as a foreseeable future.” – David McCulloch One of the frustrations I hear from leaders on a regular basis is that, right now, the future seems so uncertain. I understand why they say that, given everything that’s going on in the world. We’ve all experienced things in the past twelve … Read more
“Let our advance worrying become advance thinking and planning.” – Winston Churchill There has not been a shortage of things to worry or stress about in the past ten months. We’ve experienced any number of things that would normally be enough to put us on edge – and then we’ve experienced a global pandemic just … Read more
“The nicest thing about not planning is that failure comes as a complete surprise rather than being preceded by a period of worry and depression.” – John Harvey-Jones With all the craziness that is 2020, I find myself losing track of the fact that it’s already mid-October. So many of the events that mark the … Read more
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