If you don’t have a plan, how do you know when you get there?

Years ago, I heard an anecdote that has stayed with me ever since. An army unit on an assignment in the Alps got caught in a blizzard and couldn’t figure out where to go, what to do, to get back to base camp.

Suddenly, one of the men reached into his pocket and found a map. The unit, through the blinding snow, managed to pick out enough features to finally make their way back. It was only in the morning’s daylight that they realised it was a map of the Pyrenees, not the Alps, that they had been following.

If you are a small business, one of your competitive advantages is that you can be flexible – react quickly to changing conditions. The fact that such a change may not be in your current business plan does not outweigh the advantages of having a plan. It simply means a more informed decision can be made.

The key advantages of a plan are that it sets out objectives and lays out the strategy for reaching them. If you have a management team, the process of developing a plan can engage members in creative and analytical thinking.

The working plan – communicated to everyone in the organisation – will let each employee know what their role is and how he or she is contributing to the success of the organisation, a fundamental tenet of an Investor in People. And throw in that little extra element of luck, you too can reach base camp.