The traditional approach with programmed and annual timetables, tends to be conservative and inflexible.

This can lead to a major disconnect between what managers want to achieve and what the business actually achieves. This experience causes some managers consider planning a waste of time and resources. They would prefer to be an active player in the present.

Employees are generally the experts on their field and are current their customer knowledge. A plan prepared "somewhere else" and detached from real world experience within the business will not encourage commitment nor alignment. Employees generally have little regard for a remotely prepared plan that will tell them what will work in the business that is not in keeping with their experience. Hence the need for a sound basis, anchored in facts.

But managers need to go beyond basic assumptions, re-frame their communications and acknowledge that anticipating the future is not without risk. Managers need to encourage forward thinking and allow for exploration of a range of possible futures.

As human beings we frequently tend to view the future as an extension of the past and present. We tend to think the future is the responsibility lies with someone else who makes the decisions that will affect us.

From a business perspective managers can often sit in a comfort zone and their perspectives are based on a rigid process. Managers can become complacent when possible changes to the business environment are assumed away.

Often the planning process is based on assumptions that verify keeping the business going as it is - across a limited timeframe and with forward projections based on a fixed rate of, or compound, growth.

A traditional business planning approach tends to lock in a future position by clearly stating a quantitative outcome based on assumptions made at the time of writing the plan. This "where do we want to go to - peg a stake in the ground" approach might offer perceived certainty, but that approach ignores real world experiences.

This approach may be suitable in the short-term, usually a three to five year horizon, but beyond then, uncertainty increases to the point where some reject the process as too risky to even consider.

Organisations often develop a business planning process but not a business thinking process.

© Bmaps Pty Ltd 2013