Planning and Decision Making

Even inexperienced managers know that planning and decision making are central parts of their jobs. Planning offers several important benefits: intensified effort, persistence, direction, and creation of task strategies. First, managers and employees put forth greater effort when following a plan.
Second, planning leads to persistence, that is, working hard for long periods. In fact, planning encourages persistence even when there may be little chance of short-term success. The third benefit of planning is direction. The fourth benefit of planning is that it encourages the development of task strategies. In other words, planning not only encourages people to work hard for extended periods and to engage in behaviors directly related to goal accomplishment, it also encourages them to think of better ways to do their jobs.
Finally, perhaps the most compelling benefit of planning is that it has been proven to work for both companies and individuals. On average, companies with plans have larger profits and grow much faster than companies without plans. The same holds true for individual managers and employees: There is no better way to improve the performance of the people who work in a company than to have them set goals and develop strategies for achieving those goals.