All too often in business, planning is about what we are going to do, not what we are really doing. The continuing challenge in making planning efforts pertinent and effective is to make them integral to the fabric of our organizational lives.

Planning, or creating your strategic intent, is like creating a travel itinerary. It articulates where you want to go, how you plan to get there and when you plan to leave and arrive. But most organizations already have an itinerary (stated or un-stated), and it works, so planning elements that vary from what is currently done - even when they offer great promise for success - are resisted from the onset.

An exception occurs in crisis situations - current plans are not working and the organization's very existence is typically in jeopardy - so accepting the new plan is not an option. Without a crisis, easily implemented plan elements are adopted while more difficult items may fall by the wayside.

So, how can you craft the itinerary you want and get it accepted? First, get input from your people and incorporate their ideas when you can. Next, craft your plan to show the people in your organization destinations (outcomes), rewards (how it benefits them), scale, reasons and costs of variance from current approaches, and alternate routes along the way. Other documentation identifies timetables and resources needed.

Just like when you travel, you determine your best route (often from among many and often not the most direct route for any number of reasons). You plot your course, calculate with the scale how long it is likely to take, pack and provision for the trip (routes, resources and timetables).

In this trip example, you set out your map and other instructions and embark for your destination. In planning, you publish your written plan, distribute it to the people who can make it work and begin to implement. Usually what happens is that some of the new elements in the plan meet resistance.

If your planning process is not interactive and word of problems or resistance are delayed in getting back to you, chances are good that the plan will be abandoned or severely compromised before any positive action can be assessed. For that aspect of the plan, it's back to business as usual - because "this works and when we tried that, it didn't."

Planning success comes from ideas linked to specific actions consistently reinforced and monitored by the leader. Too often, the process doesn't follow this route, so the plan doesn't happen, or becomes compromised.

THOUGHT TO ACTION: The idea without the action is impotent. The action without the idea is reckless. In quality management circles you are told to "Plan, Do, Check, Act." It works for planning, as well.