For a lot of leaders, annual planning doesn’t feel exciting — it feels heavy. Not because they don’t care or aren’t committed, but because they haven’t really built a planning rhythm yet. When there’s no rhythm, planning always feels like starting from scratch.

Most of the Pathfinders we meet have been running the business on instinct, experience, and day-to-day communication for a long time. In the early years, that works. The team is small enough to stay coordinated just by talking. Things still move forward, and problems get solved in the moment.

Over the past few years, we kept noticing the same thing in our conversations with business owners: almost everyone knew they needed a stronger planning rhythm, but very few actually knew what kind of help they needed next. Some thought they were “behind,” when really they were just in the early stage. Others thought they needed a brand-new system, when what they actually needed was a small refinement to one they already had.