It’s the time of year when many leaders find themselves consumed by the business planning process. They scour through historical data, evaluate the current state, scan the environment, forecast the future, identify multiple scenarios that may present themselves, consider alternatives that will drive organizational success, and create actionable strategies and tactics to realize results.

What if leaders brought the same thoughtfulness, rigor, and discipline that’s applied to business planning to individual development planning?

After all, it’s people within an organization who connect with customers and clients day in and day out. It’s people who can surface issues, improvements, and innovations. It’s people who either have or lack the skills to execute on enterprisewide plans. And it’s actually people—and how well they’re developed—who dictate the success of any planning effort.

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