“Planning Is Everything. The Plan Is Nothing.”- General Dwight Eisenhower, Supreme Allied Commander (1951-1952)

During the Second World War, the United States five-star General, Dwight Eisenhower was the Supreme Commander of, the Allied Expeditionary Forces in Europe. He famously said, “Planning is everything; the plan is nothing.” This concept as it applies to us both in running our businesses and in managing our careers, is not easily understood. Your plan is a declaration of your intention. It is making a decision about what you intend to do. A plan is a document containing your purpose or goals and objectives. It is like your car parked in your garage. It has no motion and no destination. Planning is taking your parked car out of your garage and setting out on a journey from one city or one place to another city or another place. With a plan, you make a number of assumptions, including the reliability of your motor vehicle, the quantity of gasoline you will require, your current and projected cash inflows and outflows, the weather condition, the traffic along your journey, and many other knowns and unknowns. Most likely, you will assume an imaginary straight line, a freeway with no obstacles from your point of departure to your ultimate destination, just like the empty straight motorway below:

But once we begin the implementation of our business plan or our career plan, the motorway begins to look like the picture of a crowed motorway below:

Napoléon Bonaparte is quoted to have said that no plan survives the first contact with the enemy. We are living witnesses to it today in the current, though unfortunate Russian-Ukraine war.

After a plan of attack against enemy forces is drafted, during execution, there will always be unexpected elements of events and unanticipated reactions from the opposition that will force us to call for a partial or complete revision of our original plan or goals and objectives.

No plan is ever perfect. Never you forget that. There is nothing wrong with revising, updating, and refocusing your original plans and intentions; there is something wrong with completely abandoning those original goals and objectives. Be ready to make some improvisations with your plans along the journey. That is what planning is all about. Do not jettison altogether your original plan, destination, or goal. Sure enough, there will be obstacles but do not focus on the obstacles along the way at the expense of your destination or goals and objectives.

Remember the reasons for setting your goals in the first place. We fail to reach our business goals or career goals because we tend to focus on the obstacles that we did not anticipate at the beginning of our business or career journey. We must learn to plan under the condition of uncertainty.

Once again, look at the second picture above. The vehicles in front of you represent the obstacles that you didn’t fully anticipate at your originating motor park or garage before embarking on your journey. Do not let them derail your ultimate destination. Do not reformulate a completely different set of new goals and objectives because of the obstacles you meet ahead of you. Remind yourself always that the obstacle is the way to your destination. Remind yourself that a new plan is just another document like the old plan or document. Your new plan will not completely survive intact the first contact with the new set of obstacles you will meet.

Planning versus a Plan

Make a plan but remember that your plan is a mere document. Focus on planning by continuously focusing on your strengths and your weaknesses. Use your strengths to overcome your weaknesses. Constantly scan your business or career environment for threats and opportunities. Deploy your strengths against your weaknesses in other to overcome the external threats on your way.

In looking and focusing and refocusing on the future and forgetting the past, let us remember Apostle Paul’s admonition to the Philippians, wherein he said that one thing he does was to constantly forget what was behind him and choose to stand and focus and refocus towards what is ahead of him (planning). I press on towards the goal, he said, of winning the prize of my calling or purpose.

This is the mindset of a winner.