Page 158 - Finance for Non-Financial Managers

Siciliano09.qxd 2/8/2003 7:22 AM Page 139
Business Planning
The Myth
The Reality
1. Planning is a lot of Planning actually saves work and time, by 139
work; busy managers helping managers to avoid doing more work
don’t have time for than is necessary to reach their goals.
still another task.
2. Plans are obsolete as Plans are dynamic and ever evolving as the
soon as they’re done. business evolves. The best ones get
reviewed and modified regularly.
3. Plans must always be Plans need not be any more detailed than
long and detailed to the company needs to guide its activities.
be of any value. Some very focused plans for small business
will fit on a single page.
4. Business moves too The speed of business is a big reason why
fast to be held back plans are important, because we can go very
by a plan. far off the mark in a short time. Plans don’t
hold managers back; rather, they guide
managers’ forward movement.
5. Planning is not as Planning makes what we do more productive
important or valuable by enabling us to avoid doing things that
as doing something don’t contribute to our productivity as
productive. measured by end results.
6. We should leave the Plans done without the substantial
planning to the plan- involvement of the managers who are
ners and let the man- making the decisions are largely useless,
agers do their work. because they don’t reflect reality.

Figure 9-1. Myths of business planning

his or her daily work done. Yet, for the most part, these plans
are informal, often people only carry them around in their
minds and draw them out as needed, improvising and modify-
ing along the way.
Most people don’t think of themselves as planners—and yet
they plan every day, either formally or informally. We plan pret-
ty much for the best reasons—because planning helps us to
reach goals, whether the goals relate to getting our daily work
done, laying out the annual family vacation, or financing our
retirement lifestyle.