My View
Don’t Plan. Prepare!
BY KIMBERLY PIETSCH MILLER/School Administrator, September 2022

ORGANIZATIONAL HEALTH AUTHOR and speaker Patrick Lencioni published a podcast earlier this year titled “Plan is a Four Letter Word.” So that title caught my attention. How does someone who coaches leaders to develop organizations that are healthy for their employees and communities as well as their bottom lines say that planning is somehow not a positive strategy?

So, of course, I listened. Turns out, I agree with Lencioni. In fact, I have been saying the same thing for years.

Here is the heart of the matter. In a world of constant and exponential rates of change in a multitude of arenas (check out Thank You for Being Late by Thomas Friedman), one would think that planning is the way to be successful, to stay in front of the change. But the reality is that we can’t plan for the future because it is changing so fast. We just cannot know what is going to happen in six months or a year, let alone five years down the road.

“So what are you saying, Kim? We shouldn’t make plans? It’s all hopeless?”

Not at all. The key is shifting from a mindset of planning for the long haul to a mindset of preparing for the future with short-term planning based on core values and beliefs. 

That shift happened for me about 10 years ago. I was asked to speak to middle school students for their career day. At that time, I was the assistant superintendent for teaching and learning in the district. I started my talk by explaining to the students that when I was 18 and ready to start college, I had said that I would never be a teacher, was not getting married and was not having children. But there I stood before those students 27 years after that proclamation, having been married for 22 years with two children and a career that included other jobs I was never going to do — such as school administration.

Grounded in Values

My point then and now is that we always can prepare for the future, but we can’t really plan it because we just don’t know what will come along. In addition, if we plan too strictly, too rigidly, we might miss an opportunity. 

Had I stuck to my 18-year-old plans, I would have missed out on so many amazing experiences, relationships and, of course, my family. And when I learned to stop planning the future but enjoy the process of learning, that is when I realized that I was prepared for the future — both the good and the bad.

Preparing is what we do in my school district. We prepare students for experiences after they complete their programs. We talk to them about their next experience, not their forever future. We also prepare them to be problem-solvers, members of a team, leaders and innovators by providing an environment that is not focused on destinations but on learning.

We know plans need to be part of our work, so we have developed a strategic plan to guide our district’s work. But that plan is designed around four pillars that are grounded in our values: relationships, innovation, passion for learning and accountability. Our strategic plan is a living document because what our students need today could be different in a year, and we are ready for the changes that will come.

In fact, that might be the one thing we can count on: change.

KIMBERLY PIETSCH MILLER is superintendent/CEO of the Eastland-Fairfield Career & Technical Schools in Columbus, Ohio. Twitter: @KimMiller_Learn. This column is adapted from the superintendent’s blog.