Are You Planning the Trip, or Just Booking the Flight?
Are You Planning the Trip, or Just Booking the Flight?
I'm heading back to Vietnam this year. It's been ten years since I was last there.
Ten years is long enough for a country to change. It's long enough for a person to change too.
So last week I sat down at the kitchen table with a map spread out in front of me, and I realised straight away this wasn't going to be a simple case of booking a flight and winging it.
There were decisions to make. Real ones.
Where do we actually go? Vietnam is long and narrow and packed with more good options than any three week trip could ever hold.
What do we see, and what do we let go of? Because you can't do it all. Not even close. And trying to do it all is usually how you end up doing none of it well.
How do we move through the country? Fast and light, ticking off cities? Or slow, staying longer in fewer places, letting the road do some of the talking?
And when do we rest? Where do we build in the days where nothing is booked, nothing is planned, and we just are wherever we are?
I found myself circling towns on the map, crossing others out, circling them back in again. And it struck me. This is exactly what good strategic planning looks like.
Except it's not a three week trip you're planning. It's a three year one.
You're not just mapping this year. You're mapping the road all the way through to 2029. And that changes things. You can't just pick the nearest towns and call it a route. You need to know roughly where you're headed over the whole journey, even if the day to day detail gets filled in as you go.
That's actually how I've built our Strategic Planning Day. It's not a single day where you rock up cold and hope a three year route falls out of the sky by 3:30pm.
There's a scouting session first. A 60 minute webinar in early August where we look at the terrain together. What data do you need before you travel? What's the landscape you're actually planning for, not just this year, but over the next three? It's the bit where you spread the map on the table before you've committed to a single road.
Then, at the end of October, we take the actual trip. A full day at Lake Karapiro, away from the daily noise, alongside other educational leadership teams doing the same journey. You turn everything you've gathered into a real route through to 2029. Initiatives with measurable outcomes. A timeline that actually gets you there. An annual plan for this year, built as the first leg of the longer journey.
You get clear on the destination. Not every destination. The one or two that actually matter, this year and over the next three, for your school, your team, this season.
You make the hard calls on what you're not doing. Every "no" to a good option is what makes room for the great one. Ten priorities isn't a plan. It's a wish list wearing a plan's clothes, and it definitely won't survive three years of road.
You decide how you're going to travel. Fast and reactive? Or steady, with room to actually take in where you are, knowing there's ground still to cover next year and the year after?
And you build in the rest. Morning tea, lunch, an uninterrupted environment, a room full of educational leadership teams doing the same trip. Because a plan built at pace, with no room to breathe, rarely survives contact with term one, let alone three years of them.
My last trip to Vietnam happened at a completely different stage of life. This one will look different, because I'm different. And that's exactly as it should be. Your plan should look different this time too, because you're not just planning for where you'll be in December. You're planning for who you'll be in 2029.
So before you book the flight. Before you say yes to another goal, another initiative, another thing on the list.
Sit with the map for a while first. The whole map. Not just the next town.
Where are you actually going, not just this year, but by 2029? And have you built in the rest to get there well?
Strategic Planning Day is built for educational leaders, their teams and Board members. It's a two part journey: a scouting webinar on 5th or 6th August, then the full planning day on Friday 30th October at Lake Karapiro, where you'll leave with a route mapped through to 2029. Numbers are strictly limited. If you'd love a hand planning your strategic plan, I'd love to hear from you.
The Conversation
Where are you actually trying to get to, not just this year, but by 2029?
And have you planned the rest stops, or just the destination?
Have a fantastic week
Mary-Anne
