I was caught on a plane once with the One Minute Manager book, by Kenneth Blanchard. I recommend that book, it’s easy to read — about one short plane ride’s worth — and easier to absorb. And I feel like it boils down to setting expectations with people and then following up, afterwards, with reviewing performance against expectations. You can add a lot of padding around that basic idea, but essentially it’s one of those obvious ideas that’s easy to say and hard to do.

The One Minute Manager by Kenneth H. Blanchard, Spencer JohnsonRead more about this book…

Your plan-as-you-go business planning process can become a really valuable way to make that idea real, in your business, and part of your management. What I’ve found through the years is setting expectations and following up is one of those basic principles like, say, healthy diet and regular exercise. It’s easy to understand, everybody agrees that it’s good to do, but not everybody manages to make it happen. It’s a matter of actually doing what we know we want to, what we know we should.

Honestly, in my years as a company builder, it was really hard to follow up. I think it’s a natural process that you end up liking the people you work with, and, as business owner, you tend to work shoulder-to-shoulder. They aren’t direct reports or subordinates, in your mind; they are John and Teri and Vie and Cale. They become friends.

So, in the plan-as-you-go world, that need for setting expectations and following up becomes part of the process. Your plan includes the metrics people need so they can know how they’re doing. The core of management follow up happens because you have a forum, a comfortable place for that hard-to-do follow up. Your plan is built on metrics for your people, and you look at those metrics regularly. Following up gets easier.

A good business plan is never done. If your business plan is finished, then your company is also finished.

It’s a lot like the legendary farmer’s axe, that has had its handle changed four times and its blade changed three times, but it’s still the same axe.

As your company gets used to the planning process, the business plan is always a work in progress. It gets a big refreshment every year, and a review and course correction every month.

Every so often, as business plan events come up, you spin out of your business plan a formal output piece, whether it’s a pitch presentation, an elevator speech, or a full-fledged formal business plan document.

But that’s not the plan, that’s just output. It’s the latest version. But the plan goes on, like steering, walking, dribbling, and navigation.

Don’t ever wait for a plan to be done. Get going.

It’s a simple statement: all business plans are wrong, but nonetheless vital.

Paradoxical, perhaps, but still very true.

All business plans are wrong because we’re human, we can’t help it, we’re predicting the future, and we’re going to guess wrong.

But they are also vital to running a business because they help us track changes in assumptions and unexpected results in the context of the long-term goals of the company, long-term strategy, accountability, and, well, just about everything the plan-as-you-go business plan stands for.