Saturday evenings when I was a kid were all about The A-Team (oh, and perhaps The Dukes of Hazard)! Hannibal Smith’s famous line in the show was “I love it when a plan comes together.”

I thought of my favourite cigar-smoking soldier of fortune when I came across this excellent article and video by the well-known entrepreneur (of Dragons Den fame) James Caan about the importance of regular planning in your business. It is so in line with one of the biggest challenges that leaders and managers I work with face. He advocates spending two hours every week just to plan. Many people I know are struggling with the pressing demands of the immediate things to be done whilst knowing that more time to plan, set goals and develop effective strategy to reach those goals is so important.

There’s research that suggests that every minute spent in focussed, uninterrupted planning is worth ten times that amount in more effective implementation. That’s huge! So much depends on our ability to create the time and the space, without interruption, to review our goals and establish a plan to reach them. Hope you enjoy the James Caan piece as much as I did.

All the best,

Nick

P.S. In our LMI toolkit we have a load of really useful planning tools and templates – if you think this kind of structure would be helpful to you or members of your team, our Effective Personal Management workshop may be just what you need. Drop me a line and I’ll send you a massive ‘1st Person from any organisation’ disount code worth £340.