Actionable Insights for Strategic Planning: Turning Vision into Results
From vision to execution: strategies that keep your team focused, aligned, and moving forward
Almost two weeks ago, I co-facilitated a webinar with Louis Bookoff, Co-Founder & CEO of Busie, on one of my favorite topics: strategic planning. The session, presented by Busie in August 2025, provided operators and business leaders with a framework for moving beyond day-to-day firefighting and into leading with clarity, focus, and a long-term vision.
Here are a few of the core ideas we explored, and why they matter for leaders in ground transportation and beyond.
Why Strategic Planning Matters
When many people hear “strategic planning,” they picture binders on a shelf or long meetings that go nowhere. But when done well, it’s one of the most valuable leadership tools you have.
Strategic planning provides:
- Clarity about where your organization is headed.
- Alignment across teams, ensuring everyone is pulling in the same direction.
- Discipline to prioritize what matters and build accountability into daily execution.
It’s not about adding more meetings. It’s about creating a shared roadmap your team can actually use.
And here’s the real difference: organizations that skip the process end up reacting to problems instead of driving progress. They make decisions in isolation, stretch resources too thin, and confuse busyness with effectiveness. In contrast, teams that pause to plan intentionally emerge more focused, agile, and resilient when challenges inevitably arise.
Lessons From the Field
I’ve seen firsthand how strategic planning transforms results:
- At Disney, aligning multi-year tactics with the safety initiative No One Gets Hurt reduced employee injuries by 50% in four years. Safety wasn’t left to chance — it became a measurable, cultural priority.
- At Coach America, focusing on targeted growth and disciplined execution resulted in a 47% increase in revenue from $15 million to $22 million in Orlando. Instead of chasing every opportunity, we defined where we could win and concentrated our resources there.
These outcomes didn’t happen by chance. They were the product of clear priorities, aligned leadership, and consistent follow-through.
Strategic planning is powerful — but it’s also easy to get wrong. Here are three of the most common pitfalls I see:
- Treating it as a one-time event. Too many leaders hold an annual retreat, print a nice plan, and never revisit it. Strategy must be a living process.
- Trying to do everything. A plan that sets 15 priorities isn’t a plan — it’s a wish list. Focus matters. The best organizations identify a handful of priorities and put their weight behind them.
- Skipping accountability. Without ownership and regular check-ins, plans fade into the background. The strongest cultures embed strategic priorities into weekly meetings, dashboards, and coaching conversations.
Avoiding these traps is just as important as building the plan itself.
What We Shared in the Webinar
In the session with Louis, we discussed:
- What strategic planning really is — and isn’t.
- Why it matters in today’s environment of shifting costs, workforce challenges, and customer expectations.
- Real-world examples of organizations that used planning to improve safety, drive growth, and strengthen culture.
- The leadership habits that turn plans into results.
One of the most potent reminders came near the close:
“You don’t look like your goals. You look like your habits.” – author unknown
The strongest organizations aren’t the ones with the most extensive plans. They’re the ones that build consistent habits of alignment, accountability, and execution.
Final Thought
Strategic planning isn’t a luxury. It’s how you stop reacting and start leading. The organizations that thrive are the ones that commit to clarity, alignment, and discipline — and then build the habits to sustain them.
Think about it this way: writing a plan is easy. Living it every day is hard. But the difference between a plan that gathers dust and one that drives results comes down to leadership consistency. Do you revisit priorities in your staff meetings? Do you hold people accountable for their part? Do you celebrate wins and adjust when things shift?
That’s where strategy becomes culture. And culture, more than anything else, determines whether your team simply keeps the wheels turning — or drives sustainable, long-term success.
Brian Dickson is the owner of Bus Business Consultants and author of Ground Transportation Insights on Substack. Drawing on leadership roles in motorcoach operations and Disney’s Guest Transportation, he helps operators improve performance, culture, and growth—Bus Business Consultants: Driving Performance, Culture, & Growth in Ground Transportation.
This article was originally published on September 10, 2025 at Ground Transportation Insights.
The views expressed are those of the author alone and do not necessarily reflect the position of the American Bus Association.
