“I have a Gantt chart”

I was reading a LinkedIn post from futurist Daniel Burrus, which I cannot link to, about Martin Luther King. It triggered this tangentially related post.

Rarely do you hear "I have a Gantt chart" being the rallying call of successful organisations. When it comes to strategy, planning is the equivalent of checking your emails. It feels productive but it is really a way avoiding the mental challenge of setting a vision and creating a strategy.

Once you have a strategy it is of course essential to plan. But the two shouldn't be mixed up.

A strategic plan may well be the output but without the actual strategic thinking it’s just going to be a series of empty milestones.