To Plan or Not

London - There’s a tendency for groups to react to current economic events by paralysis--by putting new initiatives on hold or refusing to plan strategically until circumstances become clearer and the future more predictable.  The problem with this thinking is that the future is never predictable; at least, it’s not predictable within any acceptable margin of statistical reliability.  And there is every reason to believe that the future may be even less predictable for some time to come.  In short, the “new normal” is an escalated uncertainty.

So, the way to deal with hypothetical threats (“Proposed changes to the British tax system will drive high-earning nationals and expatriates to leave next year”) is with contingency planning, rather than paralysis.  The way to plan strategically is to (1) abandon once and for all the notion of a static plan, (2) embrace the idea that “the future is already here -- it’s just unevenly distributed,” and (3) get on with the task of having aspirations for your organization’s future--aspirations that may in fact be unattainable.

On this last point, I like the mission statement of St. James Church at Piccadilly in London.  After some wonderful aspirations, the statement ends with the line, “We don’t manage it all the time, so we try again.”