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The problem isn’t that portcos miss their plans.

Lee McCabe

31 Oct 2025 — 1 min read

The problem is no one updates the plan.

A deal gets signed. The spreadsheet gets built. Revenue projections go up and to the right. EBITDA margin magically improves by year three. And everyone agrees to it because, well, it has to pencil.

But here’s the issue:

Six months in, the world looks different.
Customer acquisition is harder than expected.
A key hire didn’t land.
Pricing power isn’t there.
Or maybe the good news, things are actually ahead of plan.

Yet the plan?
Still the same.
Same numbers.
Same assumptions.
Same expectations.

It becomes a quiet farce. Everyone in the boardroom knows the plan is wrong, but no one wants to be the first to blink.

The CFO keeps presenting against targets that no longer reflect reality.
The CEO keeps justifying “variance to plan” with a straight face.
And the investors keep asking “how are we tracking?” like the spreadsheet is scripture.

This isn’t just inefficient. It’s dangerous.

It leads to poor decision-making. Misaligned incentives. Distrust between management and investors. And it kills agility.

Here’s a better approach:
1. Treat the plan like a living model, not a fixed artifact.
Update assumptions quarterly based on what you’re learning. Turn it into a strategic dashboard, not a graveyard of outdated ideas.

2. Measure momentum, not just variance.
If marketing efficiency improves, bake it into the future. If a new product misses expectations, re-forecast fast. Stop pretending red is green.

3. Re-frame the board conversation.
Move from “did we hit the plan?” to “is our trajectory getting better or worse?” That’s how you make real-time decisions.

4. Reward learning, not posturing.
Penalizing a team for missing a bad plan just teaches them to sandbag. Encourage transparent reporting and smart pivots.

5. Investors: stop clinging to the model.
It was a tool to buy the deal, not a crystal ball. Holding teams to outdated numbers doesn’t make you rigorous. It makes you blind.

Business is fluid.
Markets shift.
Competitors move.
People leave.
Things break.

If your plan doesn’t change, it’s not strategy.

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