Beth's Ponderings
The other day I
read something about a business in
Now, while I
understand that they are making sure they are around long-term, I don’t agree
with the whole concept of long-term planning like that. Heck, I don’t even agree with 5-year plans (I
have had to make a few in my past, and been held to them even though conditions
had dramatically changed).
The biggest problem with planning is that we
make the plans based on where we are, and the current conditions, and no matter
how innovative our thinking, we cannot envision what will be available in the
future.
Someone making a 100-year
plan back in 1921 and using it as their template for their business, had no
concept of the technology we have available to us now (even Steve Jobs didn’t
have any idea of how pervasive the smart phone would ultimately become in our
society in such a short time period), or even how societal norms are changing
the face of business, as well as other sectors of life.
And, yes, all
business owners plan to be around forever when they open a business, but how
many sectors have been dramatically changed, or even been rendered completely
obsolete in the past 100 years?
We can, and should,
prepare as much as we can for possible eventualities, but in terms of creating
a PLAN to guide us, well, if nothing else, this pandemic has taught us that
plans can, and do, change suddenly.
I have often joked
that I’m on plan M or N in my day as things have shifted so much that I’ve gone
through plans A to L already. And that
is the way life is. We have to make a
tweak in our schedule here, or totally abandon a project there, we have to
cancel an activity today, or take a detour tomorrow, and the next thing you
know, any plans have been totally tossed out the window in frustration.
Does that mean we can’t have goals, or a future destination in mind? No, it just means that we need to be more open to the opportunities and adjustments that occur and change our directions as necessary instead of getting hung up on some particular plan that we have created.
Beth
Read the complete issue of The Chautauqua here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1zKBBegdKuDVC5oS9_7tUhEVYZcjBrNJt/view?usp=sharing
