Planning is considered a crucial responsibility for the leaders of organizations. The common wisdom has it that the higher-up in the hierarchy a leader is, the greater the time span is supposed to be covered by planning. Thus, a CEO is expected to be involved in planning that focuses on several years, even many years, ahead. The sequence of planning typically goes like this: accurate forecasting; establishing a vision; planning for the vision; articulating the vision; implementing the plan; measuring the progress being made to achieve the vision; and, correcting the course if necessary. But, what assumptions underlie this conception of planning and do they remain as pertinent as they once did in the face of the strange new world of complex and nonlinear systems within which leaders must lead?

Consider the etymology of the word "plan": it comes from the Latin "planus" meaning flat, as in our words "plane" (a flat surface) and "plain" (the Plains). A "plan" is a projection or map of a three dimensional object (e.g., an airplane) onto a two dimension flat surface (e.g., the airplane s blueprint). The plan then offers a way to both survey all at once a dauntingly large or complicated object as well as a means to peer into the future by looking ahead on the plan s flat surface. But the flatness and static quality of the plan neglect not only the spatial third dimension but the temporal dimension of a system's evolution over time as well. This neglect is not a problem if the plan is of a simple, linear system. But, what recent research into complexity is showing is that our businesses or institutions are not simple or linear, they are better thought of as complex and nonlinear. As a result, the leadership role of planning needs to be rethought in the light of complexity research.