“In preparing for battle I have always found that plans are useless, but planning is indispensable.” – Dwight D. Eisenhower

If you want to achieve great things in 2019 and beyond, now is the time to create your plan. I know, planning takes time and you are too busy already. Why should you make the time to plan?

An organization without a strategy is like a team without plays. Imagine the 11 members of your favorite football team trying to win a game without every member of the team knowing the plays. Now imagine there are 100 or 1,000 members on that team. What would that be like?

Organizational leadership can feel like herding cats: nearly impossible to move everyone in the same direction. But you know what? It’s not the cats’ fault! It is ours, the leaders. If you haven’t cast a vision for the future of your organization and made the time to create a strategy to achieve that vision, it is your fault that your people need so much direction.

How do we know that creating and executing a great strategy for your organization is the absolute best thing you could spend your time on?

There are a ton of tools available to executives, all supposedly delivering faster growth and higher profits, but which are the most effective?

Bain & Company, one of the world’s leading consulting firms, performs a yearly survey of over 10,000 executives. These executives are leaders of some of the world’s largest and most well-run organizations. In the survey, they asked the executives what tools they used in their organizations. They also asked them to rate their satisfaction with each tool they used.

What tool was at the top? Strategic Planning. Strategic planning is not only the most used tool, but also by the tool that executives are most satisfied with. Strategic planning has been at or near the top of the results since the survey began.

Customer relationship management and mission (purpose) and vision statements were both top tools. They are both key building blocks of a great plan.

In fact, four of the nine tools in the top quartile were all components of a great plan. These are the tools that the biggest and baddest companies in the world rely on to grow faster with higher profits.

One of the great outcomes of planning is getting your team on the same page and rowing in the same direction. When this happens, chaos lessens and culture begins to improve. Organizations that plan and execute well are better, happier places to work.

Shouldn’t you be using the tools the best are using? It is not difficult to get started. You must create the time and find a guide. The guide can be a book or a person.

I’ll be giving you a sampling of the tools you’ll need over the next few weeks. If you want to dive in now, head over to our resource page at www.valuesdrivenresults.com. You’ll find a lot of great tools there.

If you have any questions or a planning topic you’d like me to cover in future columns, drop me a line at [email protected]. Helping leaders improve the profit and impact of their companies is my passion. I’d be happy to help in any way I can.