100 Strategic Planning Quotes That Encourage Long-Term Thinking
Without a clear strategy, even the best ideas can fall flat.
Strategic planning is about aligning your goals with a roadmap that gets you there efficiently and effectively.
These strategic planning quotes offer guidance from visionaries and operators who’ve turned plans into performance.
If you’re mapping out your next move, this collection will inspire thoughtful, action-oriented strategy.
Top Strategic Planning Quotes
The essence of strategy is choosing what not to do. ~ Michael Porter
Without a strategy, an organization is like a ship without a rudder. ~ Joel Ross
The best CEOs I know are teachers, and at the core of what they teach is strategy. ~ Michael Porter
Strategy is about making choices, trade-offs; it’s about deliberately choosing to be different. ~ Michael Porter
You have to be fast on your feet and adaptive or else a strategy is useless. ~ Charles de Gaulle
Sound strategy starts with having the right goal. ~ Michael Porter
The biggest risk is not taking any risk. In a world that’s changing quickly, the only strategy that is guaranteed to fail is not taking risks. ~ Mark Zuckerberg
If everybody’s doing it one way, there’s a good chance you can find your niche by going exactly in the opposite direction. ~ Sam Walton
Good strategy requires leaders to say no to a whole array of possible initiatives, even though each one on its own looks promising. ~ Richard Rumelt
Strategy without tactics is the slowest route to victory. Tactics without strategy is the noise before defeat. ~ Sun Tzu
The essence of strategy is that you must set limits on what you’re trying to accomplish. ~ Michael Porter
A strategy delineates a territory in which a company seeks to be unique. ~ Michael Porter
Strategy is a pattern in a stream of decisions. ~ Henry Mintzberg
The best strategies are those that create a sustainable competitive advantage. ~ Michael Porter
Strategy is about making choices, trade-offs; it’s about deliberately choosing to be different. ~ Michael Porter
The underlying principles of strategy are enduring, regardless of technology or the pace of change. ~ Michael Porter
Strategy is a commodity, execution is an art. ~ Peter Drucker
A good strategy must be accompanied by a strong execution culture. ~ Ram Charan
Strategy is not the consequence of planning, but the opposite: its starting point. ~ Henry Mintzberg
All men can see these tactics whereby I conquer, but what none can see is the strategy out of which victory is evolved. ~ Sun Tzu
Long-term Planning Quotes
The best way to predict the future is to create it. ~ Peter Drucker
A goal without a plan is just a wish. ~ Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
By failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail. ~ Benjamin Franklin
If you don’t know where you are going, you’ll end up someplace else. ~ Yogi Berra
Good fortune is what happens when opportunity meets with planning. ~ Thomas Edison
Plans are nothing; planning is everything. ~ Dwight D. Eisenhower
Planning is bringing the future into the present so that you can do something about it now. ~ Alan Lakein
He who every morning plans the transaction of the day and follows out that plan, carries a thread that will guide him through the maze of the most busy life. ~ Victor Hugo
It takes as much energy to wish as it does to plan. ~ Eleanor Roosevelt
The time to repair the roof is when the sun is shining. ~ John F. Kennedy
In preparing for battle I have always found that plans are useless, but planning is indispensable. ~ Dwight D. Eisenhower
A man who does not plan long ahead will find trouble at his door. ~ Confucius
Plan your work for today and every day, then work your plan. ~ Margaret Thatcher
The more time you spend contemplating what you should have done… you lose valuable time planning what you can and will do. ~ Lil Wayne
Never look back unless you are planning to go that way. ~ Henry David Thoreau
Productivity is never an accident. It is always the result of a commitment to excellence, intelligent planning, and focused effort. ~ Paul J. Meyer
The reason that everybody likes planning is that nobody has to do anything. ~ Jerry Brown
Failing to plan is planning to fail. ~ Alan Lakein
Unless commitment is made, there are only promises and hopes; but no plans. ~ Peter F. Drucker
Plan for what is difficult while it is easy, do what is great while it is small. ~ Sun Tzu
Strategic Vision Quotes
The very essence of leadership is that you have to have vision. You can’t blow an uncertain trumpet. ~ Theodore Hesburgh
Leadership is the ability to translate vision into reality. ~ Warren Bennis
A leader has the vision and conviction that a dream can be achieved. He inspires the power and energy to get it done. ~ Ralph Lauren
The greatest leaders mobilize others by coalescing people around a shared vision. ~ Ken Blanchard
Vision without action is merely a dream. Action without vision just passes the time. Vision with action can change the world. ~ Joel A. Barker
Leadership is about vision and responsibility, not power. ~ Seth Berkley
A leader’s role is to raise people’s aspirations for what they can become and to release their energies so they will try to get there. ~ David Gergen
The growth and development of people is the highest calling of leadership. ~ Harvey S. Firestone
A genuine leader is not a searcher for consensus but a molder of consensus. ~ Martin Luther King Jr.
Great leaders are almost always great simplifiers, who can cut through argument, debate, and doubt to offer a solution everybody can understand. ~ Colin Powell
The most powerful leadership tool you have is your own personal example. ~ John Wooden
A leader is a dealer in hope. ~ Napoleon Bonaparte
Leadership is not magnetic personality, that can just as well be a glib tongue. It is not ‘making friends and influencing people,’ that is flattery. Leadership is lifting a person’s vision to higher sights, the raising of a person’s performance to a higher standard, the building of a personality beyond its normal limitations. ~ Peter F. Drucker
The first responsibility of a leader is to define reality. The last is to say thank you. In between, the leader is a servant. ~ Max DePree
Leadership is influence. ~ John C. Maxwell
A leader is someone who demonstrates what’s possible. ~ Mark Yarnell
The supreme quality for leadership is unquestionably integrity. Without it, no real success is possible. ~ Dwight D. Eisenhower
A leader is one who sees more than others see, who sees farther than others see, and who sees before others see. ~ Leroy Eimes
Leadership is not about the next election, it’s about the next generation. ~ Simon Sinek
The best executive is the one who has sense enough to pick good men to do what he wants done, and self-restraint to keep from meddling with them while they do it. ~ Theodore Roosevelt
Business Foresight Quotes
The future belongs to those who prepare for it today. ~ Malcolm X
The best way to predict the future is to create it. ~ Peter Drucker
The future depends on what you do today. ~ Mahatma Gandhi
The future is not something we enter. The future is something we create. ~ Leonard I. Sweet
The future rewards those who press on. I don’t have time to feel sorry for myself. I don’t have time to complain. I’m going to press on. ~ Barack Obama
The future is already here – it’s just not evenly distributed. ~ William Gibson
The future is purchased by the present. ~ Samuel Johnson
The future starts today, not tomorrow. ~ Pope John Paul II
The future will be better tomorrow. ~ Dan Quayle
The future is not an inheritance, it is an opportunity and an obligation. ~ Bill Clinton
The future is something which everyone reaches at the rate of sixty minutes an hour, whatever he does, whoever he is. ~ C.S. Lewis
The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams. ~ Eleanor Roosevelt
The future ain’t what it used to be. ~ Yogi Berra
The future will belong to the nature-smart—those individuals, families, businesses, and political leaders who develop a deeper understanding of the transformative power of the natural world and who balance the virtual with the real. The more high-tech we become, the more nature we need. ~ Richard Louv
The future is uncertain but the end is always near. ~ Jim Morrison
The future is not set, there is no fate but what we make for ourselves. ~ John Connor
The future is here. It’s just not widely distributed yet. ~ William Gibson
The future never just happened. It was created. ~ Will Durant
The future is like a corridor into which we can see only by the light coming from behind. ~ Edward Weyer Jr.
The future is not laid out on a track. It is something that we can decide, and to the extent that we do not violate any known laws of the universe, we can probably make it work the way that we want to. ~ Alan Kay
Strategic Execution Quotes
Vision without execution is hallucination. ~ Thomas Edison
Strategy is a commodity, execution is an art. ~ Peter Drucker
Ideas are easy. Implementation is hard. ~ Guy Kawasaki
To me, ideas are worth nothing unless executed. They are just a multiplier. Execution is worth millions. ~ Steve Jobs
Execution is the ability to mesh strategy with reality, align people with goals, and achieve the promised results. ~ Larry Bossidy
Good business leaders create a vision, articulate the vision, passionately own the vision, and relentlessly drive it to completion. ~ Jack Welch
A vision without a task is but a dream, a task without a vision is drudgery, a vision and a task is the hope of the world. ~ From a church in Sussex, England, ca. 1730
Execution is everything. ~ John Doerr
The gap between strategy and execution is large and tragic in many companies. ~ Richard Rumelt
Execution is the game. ~ Gary Vaynerchuk
The devil is in the details, but so is salvation. ~ Hyman G. Rickover
Execution is the chariot of genius. ~ William Blake
The best plan is only good intentions unless it degenerates into work. ~ Peter Drucker
Execution is the ability to mesh strategy with reality, align people with goals, and achieve the promised results. ~ Larry Bossidy
A mediocre strategy well executed will always yield better results than a brilliant strategy poorly executed. ~ Anonymous
Execution is the missing link between aspirations and results. ~ Larry Bossidy
The strategy is delivery. ~ Jack Ma
Execution will trump knowledge every day of the week. ~ Tony Robbins
Execution really shapes whether your company takes off or not. ~ Pete Flint
The difference between success and failure is not strategy. It’s execution. ~ Anonymous
