YOUR BOSS HAS asked you to drive from Chicago to Oskaloosa, Iowa, a journey of 317 miles. He’s prepared a budget for you with clear metrics. You can spend no more than $16 on gas, you must arrive in 5 hours and 37 minutes, and you can’t drive over 60 miles per hour. But no one has a map with a route to Oskaloosa, and you don’t know whether you’ll run into a snowstorm on the way. Ludicrous? No more so than the way many companies translate their strategic plans into operations.
