Skip to main content

My Favorite Quotes About Planning (and what they mean to me)

WE'RE ON THE CUSP OF THE NEW YEAR, A TIME WHEN I try to use the next few days to do some reflection and personal mission review and goal setting. Sounds very serious, but I assure you that it's not so much that as it is reinvigorating. Taking a bit of reflective time puts me back in touch with some basic ideas that are foundational to my work and to my outlook on life.

I thought I'd begin the process this time around by sharing some quotes with you that have particular meaning for me:

Eleanor Roosevelt: It takes as much energy to wish as it does to plan. When I first came across this quote, I wrote it right down. It clicked with me, because I've worked with so many organizations whose dreams seemed to far exceed their capacities to fulfill them. Or one person has big, vocal dreams, while everybody else is either not yet in dream mode or is completely clueless. No matter whose dream or how big, without an articulated plan to achieve it, it almost certainly will remain just out of reach. An organization needs both, so why not do both?

Immanuel Kant: The best way to predict the future is to invent it. This is the quote that pops into my head every time I hear folks talk about all the stuff they believe is out of their organization's control -- "our city doesn't recognize the good things we do for it's image", "other organizations won't collaborate with us", "we're destined to second class status because we're a nonprofit", "we'll never achieve the operating budget we really need". Just because you're a nonprofit doesn't mean that you're not steering your own ship. You can consciously shape an organization's future with wishes supported by plans and actions.

Peter Drucker: Plans are only good intentions unless they immediately degenerate into hard work. I love this quote because it exposes an unvarnished truth: no amount of planning will achieve a desired future unless you're willing to work for it. There are so many nonprofits that go through a planning process just to get that sheaf of paper they can wave in front of funders, but they have no idea how to work that plan to reality (or no intention of doing so). Plans need to include fairly detailed and timeframed implementation steps that begin immediately.

Brian Tracy (motivational coach and author): A clear vision, backed by definite plans, gives you a tremendous feeling of confidence and personal power. This is the payoff! And what a feeling it is to be steering your organization's future rather than drifting along, susceptible to the whims and schemes of others.

Happy New Year and Happy Planning!

Photo: Yeah Happy New Year...Now Who's...from Expatriate Games

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Three Most Important Nonprofit Executive Director Soft Skills

If you were asked to narrow down the list of executive director qualifications to the three most important, which ones would you identify? Would the list consist of soft skills, hard skills, or some combination? Would your list be based on the great ED you are or one you've worked for, or would it be your wish list for the ED you haven't been fortunate yet to work for?  This was an assignment in my recent online class in leadership and administration for the American Association for State and Local History . I asked the class to review three-five advertisements for museum directors and analyze what these listings intimated about the organization’s past experience, current focus and goals, and future aspirations. Then, I asked the class to identify what they consider to be the three most important qualifications they would look for in a director. (Okay, so there's more than three if you dissect my three big groups.)  Soft skills outnumbered hard skills, although

Back in the Saddle

MY LAST POST WAS NOVEMBER 2012, A LIGHT YEAR AWAY it seems, that marked the beginning of a long push toward completing a manuscript on history museum leadership with my co-author, Joan Baldwin.  We finally submitted 350+ pages to our editor at Rowman & Littlefield this week.  If all goes well, we expect the book to be available in early 2014.  It's taken us two years to get to this point, so six more months or so of revision and production don't seem too long to wait until we can hold the final product in our hands (and you can, too!). The project put a lot of things on hold, including this blog.  I'm glad to be back writing about intentional leadership -- leading by design -- for nonprofit boards and staffs.  Certainly, my thoughts are now informed by the forthcoming book, in which Joan and I posit that nonprofits need to focus resources on leadership, not just management.  Most cultural nonprofits are at a crossroad, as is the sector in general, where nothing is qu

What Would Make You Turn Down an Invitation to Join a Board?

THERE'S SO MUCH WRITTEN ABOUT RECRUITING BOARD TALENT, I thought I'd spend a little time thinking about it from the prospect's point of view. Clearly, there are boards where the line is long to get on them. But what would make you turn down an invitation? Here's a short list to get the conversation started: 1. You've had no prior exposure to the organization. Your immediate reaction is "did you pull my name out of a hat?" (Is that lady in the picture the head of the Nominating Committee?) Seems as though there must be a hidden agenda at work (like you're rich and once you become a board member you'll pour all your resources into the organization) or the organization is simply looking for any warm body to fill a seat. 2. The organization doesn't have a good reputation. There's something to be said for street cred. An organization that's floundering may be strengthened by your participation or you may find yourself sucked into