Make No Little Plans!

Is a Goal Enough to Enable Change?

How are your New Year resolutions going? Have they been helpful? Have you ever achieved any of them, anytime in the past?

Why do they always seem to fade into never-never land, while life marches on?

Most of us never stay on target, long enough, to actually achieve our stated objectives. January, which is usually the coldest, darkest and dreariest month of the year in the Midwest, can also be the most depressing. Not only for the weather, but for the likely-hood of well intentioned resolutions going astray, leading people to burden themselves with blame.

Nobody likes to fail and when they falter at their resolutions, a sense of defeat and a challenge to self-worth prevails. How, then, do we avoid the self destruction of perfectly good management exercise?

To be Successful, Make a Goal Part of Your Routine (or Plan)

Here’s a bit of advice on how to make good on your resolutions, instead of just repeating the activity until it finally becomes a habit, the resolution, whatever it may be, should be made a part of your daily routine, performed at the same time(s), every day. Habits are something that you randomly fall into, while routines are something that you orchestrate.

By turning a resolution into a routine, you’ll have a far greater chance of success.

Business owners must also evaluate and/or reestablish their goals, every year, as well as review their corporate plan to see where they stand. As a business matures, unexpected strengths emerge, market conditions change, the business environment is altered by economic cycles, turnover of personnel and waves of new technology revamp how a business is run. No business operates in the exact same climate of five years prior. How does this impact upon your current plan?

A Plan is Essential to Success

Having a business plan becomes the blueprint by which a company is built.

It is the essence and soul. It reflects both the reason that the business was created and the vision of where the business is headed. The business owner is the heart by which it thrives. His/her vigor, management skills, and direction make the plan a reality.

Take, for example, the city planning for Chicago.

A hundred years ago, our country was going through an enormous population growth. Immigration was at a peak, American industrialization was burgeoning, and major cities were flourishing. Chicago was in the forefront of such urban growth.

Built on the swampy shores of Lake Michigan, something needed to be done to stabilize the lakefront and make it a useful, productive space for the city to expand. Scores of architects and engineers were employed, who devised ways to use landfills, erect sky scrapers, and reverse the flow of the river to preserve the purity of the lake water. A plan, however, was needed.

Part of the team that created this master plan was an architect named Daniel Burnham. His vision for the lakefront, with public park land from one end of the city to the other, not only became the reality that still exists today, but it has become the envy of the world. No major city, anywhere, has an unencumbered front door of public space, laid out with such great beauty, utility, and function as the city of Chicago.

Proven Plan Development Concepts

Burnham’s advice on how to develop a plan is legendary and has been quoted for 100 years:

“Make no little plans; they have no magic to stir men`s blood and probably themselves, will not be realized. Make big plans; aim high in hope and work, remembering that a noble, logical diagram once recorded will never die, but long after we are gone will be a living thing, asserting itself with ever-growing insistency. Remember that our sons and grandsons are going to do things that would stagger us. Let your watchword be order and your beacon, beauty.”

Daniel H. Burnham, City Planner, Architect

The quote, some say, is a compendium from several of Burnham’s quotes, but what is important is that each phrase expresses a key element of a good plan. When put together, these elements comprise a plan worthy of great success.

A plan, according to Burnham, demands a high level of integrity, a well defined purpose, an assurance of durability along with the expectation of future influence and change that will further enhance the original idea. There is little hope for companies that operate without a plan. There certainly may be an initial flourish of success, but in order for any business to prosper, a well laid-out and orchestrated plan must exist.

Resolve to make no little plans and you’ll achieve great things!