Planning in Leadership

PLANNING

First and foremost, what is planning?

Planning is the process of thinking about the activities required to achieve a desired goal. It involves the creation and maintenance of a plan, such as psychological aspects that require conceptual skills. There are even a couple of tests to measure someone’s capability of planning well. As such, planning is a fundamental property of intelligent behavior. An important further meaning, often just called "planning" is the legal context of permitted building developments.

Now let's understand why planning is important for organization:

1. Increases efficiency: Planning makes optimum utilization of all available resources. It helps to reduce wastage of valuable resources and avoids their duplication. It aims to give the highest returns at the lowest possible cost. It thus increases the overall efficiency.
2. Reduces business-related risks: There are many risks involved in any modern business. Planning helps to forecast these business-related risks. It also helps to take the necessary precautions to avoid these risks and prepare for future uncertainties in advance. Thus, it reduces business risks.
3. Facilitates proper coordination: Often, the plans of all departments of an organization are well coordinated with each other. Similarly, the short-term, medium-term and long-term plans of an organization are also coordinated with each other. Such proper coordination is possible only because of efficient planning.
4. Aids in Organizing: Organizing means to bring together all available resources, i.e. 6 Ms. Organizing is not possible without planning. It is so, since, planning tells us the amount of resources required and when are they needed. It means that planning aids in organizing in an efficient way.
5. Gives right direction: Direction means to give proper information, accurate instructions and useful guidance to the subordinates. It is impossible without planning. It is because planning tells us what to do, how to do it and when to do it. Therefore, planning helps to give a right direction

Therefore, planning is necessary for effective and efficient functioning of every organization irrespective of its size, type and objectives.