We all have plans. But until a plan is written, it’s not real.

I learn what I think by writing about it. Then, over time I can also see if I’m accomplishing what I intended. I can also learn how my thinking has changed and adjust to those changes.

My mentor told me over lunch last week that the late New York Times writer, James “Scotty” Reston once said, “it’s hard to know what I think until I read what I’ve written.”

Here’s the punch line for business and organizational leaders. Neither you nor your associates will know what you’re thinking until you and they read what you’ve written. Your and their power is enhanced by written plans.

So why don’t we all write our plans?

Some tell me “it takes too much time” but I think it is because we fear written plans. Writing my plan makes it real so it also makes us vulnerable to criticism. Written plans require the thick skin of ego and the power of humility for the many times that which you’ve written goes out of date or is proven wrong.

My very first question to every single person who comes to me for counsel or support is, “do you have a plan.” Their answer is always “yes.” Then I ask if I may see the plan and the hemming and hawing begins. If their answers were listed on the Family Feud game show, the survey would say: “1. I’m working on it, 2. I can’t share it because it’s confidential and 3. I’ve been working on it for years so I know it by heart.”

That’s when I offer that if they’ll share even a half page that describes what they want to accomplish and how they might do so, I will help them if I can. But if they cannot write and share, I cannot help them. Until something is written, we’re not planning our life/business/relationships, we are just talking to ourselves.

Years ago, one of my dearest friends told our peer group that his goal was to create a deeper relationship with his Dad. We asked him his strategy and he said, “We’re going to talk more.” The group told him “that’s not good enough, you must write down an action plan.” Being a high achiever, he came to the next meeting and announced “Dad and I are having lunch on the third Friday of every month – it’s written so it’s real.”

His Dad contracted brain cancer only a few years later and died at age 63. Soon after he was ill, our friend told the group, “thank God you guys made me write that plan – my Dad and I grew much closer just by being together regularly.”

This article and that story remind me that I will write my available dates to our media company’s president since I’ve been talking a lot about getting out and selling for that business. And yet I haven’t been out there nearly as much as I’d “planned.”

I’ve told all the sales people I’ll be out there with them a lot this year.

But it wasn’t written... so it wasn’t real.

Peace,

Tim McCarthy