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Execution

No plan survives first contact with the enemy

Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth - Mike Tyson

From 2016 to 2018 (my first two years at Google as an account manager), I thought annual planning was the most pointless activity at work.

If you’re unfamiliar with annual planning, it’s basically a 1-3 month exercise where you come up with a business plan for the next year:

  • For example based on sales projections of US$ 1M in 2022, sales managers might estimate they need to hit US$ 1.4M in 2023, and come up with a plan to reach that goal

Two reasons why I thought this was a complete waste of time:

  1. Things change quickly (e.g. Internal team re-orgs, Covid, Ukraine, US-CN tensions, etc.)
  2. We would never revisit last year’s plan and hold ourselves accountable to what we set out to achieve

What my younger self missed

But of course, there’s a reason why this quote is just as well-known as the one from Mike Tyson:

Plans are worthless, but planning is everything - Dwight D. Eisenhower

I realized a little late the massive benefits that came with annual planning:

  • The act of planning forced me to take a step back from the daily operations (i.e. the nitty gritty) and to look at the business from a bird’s eye view

Even taking a minute to think, “How am I going to get an additional US$ 400,000 for next year” meant I had to make time to brainstorm ideas, schedule 1:1’s with mentors to get their advice, and structure my next steps in Google Slides.

I found time and time again that while I would only complete 30-40% of the actions I said I would, having a completed slide deck titled, "2023 Marketing Plan" itself put me on the right path and often helped me start the year strong.

Implications

The next time you catch yourself rolling your eyes during an annual planning meeting, remind yourself that the act of making a plan is the end goal, NOT the final presentation (I know it’s weird).

This way, you won’t make my mistake of always bringing negative energy into the meetings (I complained a lot to be honest) and you will walk away with a clearer understanding of what you need to do!

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