Strategy Without a Plan is Just Words

I read a post the other day where the author said he doesn’t like to make a plan because it interferes with his creativity. He went on and on about how he is a strategic thinker and listed all the reasons why plans don’t work. Wait, what?

I get it. We want to be free thinkers without any constraints, but strategies aren’t plans and plans don’t work without a strategy. A strategy some say would be something like this, “We need to make this widget, so we will find someone to affordably make it for us, then we will sell it for a high profit and make a lot of money.” A plan could be something like this, “Research the top 10 manufacturers and get bids to create this product, then contact UPS, FedEx and USPS to get quotes on how much it will cost to ship that product, of course create a process for how to sell the product online and over the phone and finally outline a marketing plan for paid search, social media and email.” 

Both examples are the same, but different. To be an effective strategist, you need to know the rules. I have a saying, “Learn the rules and then break them.” I like to apply that metaphor to a lot of things and the reason I created the saying is because we live in a world of rules and when we understand the rules, then we understand where the opportunities are. Another way of looking at it is how a joke is constructed. If no one gets the joke, then it’s not funny, but if everyone understands the joke and laughs, it’s because it has context and everyone understands the rules.

In my forthcoming book, Create Your Own Job | How To Become Self Employed Without a Plan, the title is a misnomer, because the book clearly lays out a plan for you to follow to become self employed. I purposely didn’t write a feel good book that repeatedly tried to inspire the reader, tell them that they were great and that all they had to do was go for it! Now, those books have their place and they definitely sell, but at some point there has to be action and when you create action, that’s following a plan. 

We are surrounded by plans. We were raised by plans. We literally live by a plan. We all know what plans are, but many of us don’t call them that or just don’t know what a plan is. When we get up in the morning and go to work, we follow a plan. When we were kids, we went to school and learned addition and subtraction, before we could learn multiplication and division. We work during the day and sleep at night. All of those are plans. The reason we want a plan is because that gets us to our desired result. For example, we know that if we want to lose 30 pounds and we work out five days a week, for a whole year, the odds are we will lose that 30 pounds and then some. That is a plan that when executed correctly achieves the result we wanted. We also know that if we wanted to lose 30 pounds and only worked two days a week, the odds of us losing 30 pounds in a year is much lower. In the last example, the strategy won’t work, because it’s not a good plan. If the strategy is to lose 30 pounds, but there isn’t proper action, well then it doesn’t mean anything.

I’ve been in many boardrooms, conferences and annual meetings where top executives, managers and strategists tell you all the exciting things to come. It’s inspiring, the room is buzzing and everyone feels good. What’s important next is the follow up. When days turn into weeks and weeks turn into months, but there still is no action, well now you have a new problem, your team starts to lose confidence in their leadership. Words have meaning and consequence. Leaders don’t have the luxury of speaking false truths. They have a window of opportunity to lead by example and the old idiom rings true here, “Actions speak louder than words.” That phrase perfectly describes great leaders in any setting and should be hanging on the wall of every aspiring person of influence. 

I wish words were enough. It sure would make things a lot easier. I don’t believe leaders in organizations set out to make promises they can’t keep. Part of their job is to inspire, lead by example and pull every lever at their disposal to fulfill their promise, but that doesn’t always happen. In fact, most promises never get fulfilled. We don’t have a strategy problem, we have an execution problem and to fix it the leaders who make these promises need to hand them over to competent individuals to get them done. Everyone wants to blame the leader when actions fall flat, so executives, managers and leaders, when you are tired of your promises failing, I’ll be here to pick up the reins and get it to the finish line, because I’m tired of it too. You can’t effectively lead when nothing gets done, because strategy without a plan is just words.