Hüte dich vor Overplanning!

No sooner is the year approaching the finish line than they begin again—the forecasting rounds. Budgets, scenarios, Excel battles.

And while entire teams try to squeeze the future into columns and rows, it has already begun to change—faster than we can calculate. Who today can say with certainty how markets will develop? What prices, delivery times, or customer needs will look like in six months?

In the past, the world seemed stable enough to find answers to such questions. Today it is too complex, too interconnected, too volatile.

And yet many organizations continue to cling to their planning rituals. Perhaps because having numbers feels reassuring. Perhaps because control is comforting.

But let’s be honest: most of these numbers are already outdated before they are even presented.

We live in a time in which the rules of the game have changed. Results can no longer be predicted with the level of precision we were once used to. What worked yesterday may already fail tomorrow. The assumptions on which entire business models were built are crumbling under the reality of the unknown.

Processes no longer provide certainty either. A missing component, a political decision, a digital attack—and suddenly the variables change again. The idea that complexity can be conquered through planning has run its course.

So what remains?

Culture.

When nothing is reliable anymore, the how becomes more important than the what.

What matters is no longer precise planning, but the ability to respond, improvise, and learn together.

Culture becomes the backbone in a world that is constantly changing. It is the net that holds us when numbers begin to crumble. It is the energy that arises when teams trust each other, argue openly, and search for solutions together.

Antifragility—the ability to grow through crises—does not emerge from control, but from relationships. Not from forecasts, but from trust.

Anyone who wants to lead in uncertain times should rely less on spreadsheets and more on conversations. Less on deviations from targets and more on conveying purpose. Less on planning—and more on mindset. Less on meeting expectations, and more on striving for excellence.

Because what do we ultimately want more: that our (adjusted) expectations are met—or that we achieve excellence and perhaps even exceed them?

This post was published by Wolfgang Jenewein on LinkedIn on November 20, 2025. Zum Original-Beitrag