Your three-year change plan was out of date the week you finished writing it.

That says more about the problem than about your planning.

In 1994 two consultants interviewed thirteen CEOs deep into major change programs. They expected to hear that detailed, structured plans were what made change work. Instead the message was unanimous, and delivered with some heat:

"Grand plans do not look intelligent from the bottom, and are bad for morale."

Detailed planning for change, the top managers said, does not deliver, is unresponsive, and is unrealistic. The control a big plan seems to give is mostly illusion. Every action has consequences you didn't predict, and every step reveals information you didn't have.

This does not mean drift. The same research names four things that separate an adaptive approach from muddling through:

• Purpose: a clear direction, even when the path is unknown.
• Insistence: holding change as an imperative so the team doesn't slide back to comfort.
• Learning: treating each move as exploratory and reading what it tells you.
• Rigor: doing the honest, hard thinking before the next step.

Note what's missing: a detailed map of months 7 through 36.

The shift is from planning for change to building a live agenda for it. Work the real issues and aspirations the org has now, act, learn, reset.

For a closed problem, like shipping a release or building a bridge, plan it tight. For changing how an organization actually behaves, a fixed plan is the most dangerous-looking safe thing you can hold.

Which of your current priorities are bridges, and which are organizational change?