The Case for Personal Strategic Planning

Adapted from Creating Your Future: Personal Strategic Planning for Professionals by George L. Morrisey, San Francisco: Berrett-Koehler Publishers, 1992

Why Me?

Whether you are an independent professional in a one-person operation, a partner or staff member in a professional services firm or a professional operating within a large or small corporation, thoughts such as these may very well cross your mind when the subject of strategic planning for you personally is raised. Why should you put any effort into it? What's the payoff for you? How can this help you achieve some things that otherwise might have slipped by? My plan in this book is to share with you the benefits of applying the strategic planning process to you personally and to provide you with a methodology whereby you can make it work for you with significant payoff now and in the future.

First of all, let me offer one caveat. Never adopt any planning system. Rather, adapt whatever system is proposed that makes sense for you. Your knowledge, experience, personal style, temperament, and the circumstances in which you find yourself all will shape the way your personal planning system should be designed. Always keep in mind that plans are a means to an end, never an end in themselves. If you can keep your focus on where plans are leading you, without getting hung up on the mechanics of the process, you'll find that this approach will open up huge new vistas in terms of both present and future satisfaction in your life.

What Are Some of the Benefits of Personal Strategic Planning?

First of all, strategic planning helps provide a personal vision for the future. It is so easy to get wrapped up in the present that we lose sight of where the future might be leading us. If we intend to grow in any significant aspect of our lives, we need to periodically focus on what the future will look like. Depending on where you are in your career and your life, this future vision may be as little as two or three years out or could be as much as twenty or thirty years in the future. The ironic thing about focusing on a period in the future is that what you project for that time is probably not what's going to happen. Specific circumstances, opportunities, threats, and personal preferences may lead you in a distinctly different direction from what you established in your initial planning effort. That does not invalidate the planning process. By focusing on the future, we are able to determine when it is appropriate to change a course of direction.

Career direction is a strong concern for most professionals, particularly during the early stages of their careers. It is interesting to note that only a small fraction of professionals end up in the career for which they initially prepared. Our interests change; different opportunities present themselves; family obligations impact the direction in which we should be moving. By looking forward, we have a better chance of identifying some of the road blocks that may interfere with where we want to go and identify some of the options that may become available to us. Sometimes, by playing the "what if" game, it will open up new vistas that might not otherwise become apparent to us. While this will not necessarily prevent us from stumbling along the way, there is a greater likelihood that we will be able to respond more effectively to things that can significantly impact where we are going.

Creating and taking advantage of opportunities is generally much more productive if we keep our peripheral vision open. These "opportunities" are not limited to our profession. They can include such things as financial investments, real and personal property, family and friends, or anything that has a significant meaning in our lives. While there is always a risk in looking at opportunities, that risk tends to be reduced when we have anticipated it and planned how to deal with it.

As a counterpart to the risk involved in opportunity, strategic planning can also significantly enhance our personal and business security and safety. This includes, of course, financial security, health and well-being, family concerns, and any factors that might cause significant future trauma.

The subject of retirement can arouse a variety of different emotions, depending on where we are in our chronological and professional lives. For many professionals, total retirement may never be a reality. Many of us feel that, as long as we have our physical and mental faculties, we will continue to practice our professions indefinitely. The base and focus of our efforts may change, but we plan to continue practicing our professions to some degree as long as we are able. On the other hand, there are many professionals who look forward to retirement as an opportunity for a significant change in lifestyle that will create new experiences that their careers may have interfered with in the past. Regardless of your own perspective on retirement, when you come to the point where it is appropriate for you to back off from what you have been doing, it will be much more satisfying and fulfilling if it comes as a result of planned effort rather than the closing of a door.

The building and maintaining of a balanced life represents another significant benefit of personal strategic planning. Oftentimes, practicing professionals develop "tunnel vision" which keeps them narrowly focused on their business and careers. During certain periods of our lives, this may be justified. However, life is much more than getting ahead professionally or in business. We need to achieve a balance that includes family and friends, health and wellness, personal fulfillment that may not directly relate to our profession, financial planning, spiritual development, and service to others. Just as a chair will not function properly if one of its legs is longer or shorter than the other, neither will our lives function effectively without some sort of holistic balance. Giving significant attention to another important aspect of our lives does not necessarily detract from our professional focus. In fact, it is possible to achieve a true synergy wherein the "whole" person can be even more productive professionally as well as personally.

A final significant benefit is the opportunity to involve others in making our futures come alive. These could include our life partners, parents and siblings, children, professional colleagues, employers, and friends who have either a vested interest in our success or a genuine concern about our future well-being. Since there are very few things in our lives that we can accomplish without the help of others, it is much more meaningful to get them involved as early as possible in the planning process. Not only are they able to offer significant contributions that may help make our plans more effective, their active support in the pursuit of these efforts can go a long way toward assuring their achievement.

Why Do Professionals Tend to Resist Planning?

Thinking versus action frequently provides an interesting dilemma for many professionals. We tend to be action-oriented. When we are doing something, we have a feeling of being productive. When we take the time to think, we sometimes feel guilty of being unproductive. While there is no question but that whatever we do should lead to some sort of productive action, in reality very little such action comes without some kind of realistic thinking. Therefore, it is not "either-or"; rather, it is "both-and." In fact, without investing the time and effort required to think about where we are going, there is a very strong likelihood that we will never get there. And, of course, we have to decide where "there" is. It is difficult to do that without putting significant effort into thinking.

Time required frequently is a barrier to effective planning. How often have we said "I just haven't got the time to do that right now". While that may be a legitimate reaction occasionally, in many cases it turns out to be just an excuse. It's interesting to note that we frequently don't have time to plan the job appropriately ahead of time. However, when the job does not get done right, somehow or other we always find the time to do it over again. Time is one of those exhaustible commodities with which we have to deal as professionals. Consequently, the planning process, while it does take time, could lead us to much more productive use of what limited time we do have available.

Changing circumstances frequently is given as a reason for not putting significant effort into planning. "How can we plan when things are changing so fast!" is a frequently-heard expression. As we identified earlier, changing or modifying plans is not only inevitable but actually desirable in many situations. The key, of course, is to recognize when changes are taking place. There is nothing wrong with changing direction, provided we know we are changing and there is a valid reason for doing so. The purpose of a plan is to provide us with a foundation from which we can make appropriate digressions which may be more productive at the time.

When things are going well is a time when it is easy to fall into the trap of thinking that they are going to continue to go well "forever." When we are on a highly successful path is probably the time when strategic planning is most critical. Despite the euphoria we may feel at such times, it is absolutely certain that it will not go on "forever." Something will happen that will be other than what we had anticipated, thus moving us, whether we like it or not, in a different direction. Being better prepared for dealing with those situations that may run counter to our desired direction is one of the single most important reasons for doing strategic planning in the first place. While we may not be able to anticipate everything that will have an impact on where we are going, we stand a much better chance of dealing effectively with that if we have looked ahead and anticipated some of the things we might be facing.

When things are not going well is probably a more legitimate reason for postponing strategic planning efforts. When your house is on fire is not the time to think about installing a sprinkler system. Really, when we are faced with survival, that has to take precedence over where we are going in the long run. For, as one wag said, "In the long run we are all dead." The problem that frequently faces us, however, is that we tend to think we are always in a crisis situation. Unfortunately, this frequently comes as a result of the way we function personally. If you find yourself in a situation where you are moving from one crisis to another on a continuing basis, perhaps that is when you need to take some time off, sit back and really think about where it is that you want to go. We frequently find that these crises come as a result of a lack of effective planning in the first place. At some point, we may need to break that pattern in a way that is going to be more productive for us.

Finally, not recognizing the difference between strategic or long-term planning and operational planning may inhibit our efforts. Operational planning, which is commonly what we have to apply in dealing with crisis situations or in achieving our short term results, tends to be quite specific and very much action-oriented. Strategic planning, on the other hand, is much more conceptual and visionary. It is far more directional than specific. If you plan to commit yourself to some form of strategic planning in your own professional life, it needs to be addressed at a time when that is the principal focus. You may find it helpful to have someone else assist you in the process who can keep you focused on the strategic or long-term concerns. Think of strategic planning as helping you determine where it is you are going and operational planning as how you will get there.

In Summary

Strategic planning has at least as much value for the individual professional as it does for an organization. It helps establish a personal vision for the future that encompasses both career direction and a balanced personal life. It is an exciting way of creating that future rather than allowing it to just happen.