It makes sense for an organization to establish goals and direction, but critics have challenged some of the basic assumptions of planning.4

• Criticism: Planning may create rigidity. Formal planning efforts can lock an organization into specific goals to be achieved within specific timetables. Such goals may have been set under the assumption that the environment wouldn’t change. Forcing a course of action when the environment is random and unpredictable can be a recipe for disaster.

  • Manager’s Response: Managers need to remain flexible and not be tied to a course of action simply because it’s the plan.

• Criticism: Formal plans can’t replace intuition and creativity. Successful organizations are typically the result of someone’s vision, but these visions have a tendency to become formalized as they evolve. If formal planning efforts reduce the vision to a programmed routine, that too can lead to disaster.

  • Manager’s Response: Planning should enhance and support intuition and creativity, not replace it.

• Criticism: Planning focuses managers’ attention on today’s competition, not on tomorrow’s survival. Formal planning, especially strategic planning (which we’ll discuss shortly), has a tendency to focus on how to best capitalize on existing business opportunities within the industry. Managers may not look at ways to re-create or reinvent the industry.

  • Manager’s Response: When managers plan, they should be open to forging into uncharted waters if there are untapped opportunities.

• Criticism: Formal planning reinforces success, which may lead to failure. The American tradition has been that success breeds success. After all, if it’s not broken, don’t fix it. Right? Well maybe not! Success may, in fact, breed failure in an uncertain environment. It’s hard to change or discard successful plans—to leave the comfort of what works for the uncertainty (and anxiety) of the unknown.

  • Manager’s Response: Managers may need to face that unknown and be open to doing things in new ways to be even more successful.