What Dwight (Eisenhower, that is) said.
My other favourite quote – I think from von Clausewitz – is “no battle plan survives contact with the enemy.”
Well, MCFly has been dishing it out – and then some – to organisations that have plans and don’t keep to them. There’s been a little voice in its head saying “someone’s gonna prove you is a hypocrite, matey.”
Indeed – all they’d need to do is compare our grubby reality versus what we said we’d do.
I guess the difference is;
a) MCFly can freely admit it, not sadled as we are with job fears and the Peter Principle and all that jazz
b) MCFly actually has some outputs (if not necessarily outcomes) to point to.
That strategic plan, btw, will be rebooted and recycled. While all the while remembering what Dwight (Eisenhower) said.
manchester climate monthly 
I thought that planning had been abandoned years ago (or, at least, things like ‘town planning’ had) – we live in a neo-liberal, laissez-faire world now. Don’t you know that too much planning can stifle competition? Let the market decide!
I’ve been looking at all of those pictures of flood stricken Somerset and noticing all of the new-build housing in flood-plains, courtesy of rapacious developers and their slavish ‘hand-maidens’ – the politicians in the local town halls. I wonder if the market will come to the aid of those whose homes have been destroyed?
Hmm – not sure how true that quote is, or how much he knew about it anyway. He wasn’t much more than a figurehead.
In a climate change context, I think it’s better to say: targets are useless without mechanisms, mechanisms won’t work without targets.