A little over a year ago, I launched this newsletter with an essay describing the need for strategic planning during times of uncertainty. A lot in the world has changed since then, prompting me to revisit my initial advice and add another layer to it.
Since that first newsletter, we have experienced an unprecedented degree of turmoil across virtually every domain, from politics and the economy to technology, the environment, and society more broadly. These days, it feels as though the only thing we can count on is more uncertainty.
Despite these immense and often unanticipated changes, I think that my main piece of advice still holds: Don’t wait for perfect conditions—the right administration, a balanced budget, full staffing, or seamless operations. Start planning now. It’s your most valuable tool for whatever lies ahead.
When planning feels impossible
What has changed, however, is that for many of us—myself included—our ability to push forward and plan for the future is diminished. Strategic planning requires a mixture of hope, imagination, and motivation to act—something that can feel impossible when our brains are in defense mode.
Yet I think there is a way to reframe the case for strategic planning during times of turmoil: Rather than abandoning the enterprise entirely, what if we redefine the purpose of strategic planning?
In this spirit, I’d like to add another layer to my initial advice for managing the future in uncertain times. It comes from Oliver Burkeman’s Meditations for Mortals, which I’ve written about previously. Burkeman’s entire premise is that our lives our finite, and the path to happier, more fulfilling lives requires us to embrace our finitude.
What draws me to Burkeman’s work in this context is a single, counterintuitive idea about how we relate to the future. When it comes to planning, his advice is simple: Let the future be the future.
Rather than devote time and energy to worrying about—and setting up defenses against—multiple unknown what-ifs, it is better simply to wait for real problems to emerge, and then trust in your capacity to deal with the challenges when they arrive.
Planning as practice, not product
On the surface, this advice—stay in the present!— seems antithetical to strategic planning. But I think this contradiction dissolves once you separate the product of planning from the process. The written strategic plan is the obvious deliverable, but the process of developing it may actually be the more valuable part: it enables you to build the organizational muscle to manage uncertainty, including those challenges that none of us can currently imagine.
As Burkeman writes, “[the worrier] makes superhuman efforts to bring the future under his control right now. In fact he should devote less energy to manipulating the future, and have more faith in his capacity to handle things once the challenge actually arrives.”
These days, planning for the future may be less about developing clear action plans, tied to timelines and deliverables, and instead about creating the organizational capacity to manage whatever turmoil is around the corner. Perhaps most important, strategic planning entails developing and reinforcing a culture of care and collaboration—one that offers your staff, volunteers, and stakeholders the hope and confidence to move forward.
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