“You need to have a plan.” I’m sure we have heard this exact quote or something similar throughout our lives. The desire for planning has an air of practicality and wisdom. Is not a goal, but a dream, if a plan does not accompany the goal? It is easy to laud the virtues and need for planning based on what we know, what we’ve experienced, and what we can foresee.

Yet, for all the apparent good of planning in the world, the notion of moderation must be taken into account. I do not mean to say that you need to moderate how much planning you exude in your own personal life. I am concerned in this writing with the planning initiatives taken by any large organization. Many organization’s in today’s world, whether private or public have grown increasingly large and increasingly complex. With size and complexity often leads to the decentralization of understanding and decision-making. The largess of a modern city government is enough to make a citizen’s head spin, and these local agencies are small compared to their state and federal counterparts. On the private side, when you look back 25 years and consider the transformation of an online book seller like Amazon, or a home computer company like Apple, you cannot help but be struck with a certain level of awe as to what change and growth has occurred.

The danger that arises from increasing growth and scope of services offered, is the inability to properly understand and control for all the activity happening within an organization. Relying on a sports analogy, think of how much easier it is to understand, watch, coordinate, and host a two on two beach volleyball event versus an American football game. Size and diversity result in more planning at every level of the operation; from on the field to travel and everything in between.

Likewise, organization’s follow a similar fate to our prior comparison. Planning becomes an increasingly important factor to ensure the flow of work can be efficiently and effectively done. Yet, it cannot be lost in the malaise that the planner is in control and not the plan itself. This strange situation occurs when we begin to revere the plan for being a plan and do not see the forest through the trees. When leadership becomes disconnected from the practical application and utility of what has been previously created, then the abuse of planning is primed to occur.

To prevent the abuse of planning, leadership needs to have a keen skillset and mindset around the concept of critical review and maintenance. This is a radical break from the growth mindset we are often conditioned to behold. This management state of mind for leadership must be wise in understanding of how the layers of the existing organization work to meet its broad goals and how to adjust what exists to ensure those goals are continued to be met. Planning for the future must come to be understood as a focus on ones existing self and what needs to be improved or removed.

The need to create must be balanced against the need to maintain. Planning therefore must conform to this new reality. We are beholden to what we have created in the past and how the plans of the past serve our present needs. Past planning that continues in an uncheck manner begins to resemble a zombie, which not only negates the real value of the initial purpose of the plan, but also creates decay in organizational culture, effectiveness, and efficiency.

Here’s the bottom line, good planning is like building a house. If done right you get the vision you expect and without good planning you get the Winchester Mystery house with hallways leading to nowhere and other designs that lack rhyme or reason. Once the house is built, a new era of planning arrives and you must adapt to the new reality. This requires leadership that realizes that the planning they do today must focus on what plans were set in motion in the past and how those plans meet the present reality.

An organization following and updating plans that do not fit their current reality are on par with a dog chasing its tail, but at least the dog chasing its tail provides for a laugh. Making space for what is new, often means casting out what is old. Planning for the future is no different. Clean out your organization’s planning skeleton closet today.