A pilgrimage is not a plan

One of the poems that has stuck in my head since school days is Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, which starts in April; the month that people go on pilgrimage.

April is the month when people set out. Not because the road is easy, but because staying still is no longer an option.

For leaders, that is the real message.

A pilgrimage is not a plan. It is a commitment to move towards something that is not yet fully understood. It requires:

• clarity of intent, even when the path is uncertain
• willingness to leave behind what has worked before
• endurance, because progress is uneven

Most organisations today are not short of plans. They are short of movement.

Strategies are written, discussed, refined. But the organisation itself often remains where it was:

• same structures
• same behaviours
• same assumptions about how work gets done

April is a useful moment to ask a harder question.

What journey have you actually started?

Not what are you planning. Not what are you exploring. But what have you committed to that will require your organisation to change how it operates?

Because in the current environment, standing still is not stability. It is slow decline.

The leaders who will succeed this year are not those with the best plans. They are those who have begun the journey, aligned their organisation behind it, and are prepared to keep moving even when the path is unclear.