In nearly 20 years of helping organizations, I have seen strategy and planning from a thousand different angles, however 5 undeniable certainties are always present.

Planning is Hard.

Perhaps it is a sign of our times that we want instant gratification and we underestimate the effort to do something right, but this is especially true with planning. From public, private and non profit organizations, I witness a chronic under-assessment of the level of hard work required to make and execute a successful plan.  This truth pervades every level of the plan from a board of directors who think they can create a compelling and successful strategy in a half day session to a project team who low-balls the effort required for just about everything. If planning was easy, every company, association and charity would grow and thrive every year.

There is no Such Thing as Buy-In.

Many leaders I work with want make a plan with little or no meaningful input from the people who will be responsible for implementation. They believe they can “get buy-in” after the fact. This almost never works. People want a fair and substantive influence on the plan they will ultimately need to execute.