I’m gearing up for a new season of “strategic planning” projects with a new sense of what the process might mean when we’re being intellectually honest with ourselves about the future.
The truth about the future is that it’s uncertain. It’s uncertain because our knowledge is alway imperfect, because we’re taking actions that will always have non-linear ripples of consequences, and people we will never meet will take actions that will impact us in non-linear ways.
When I wrote “Project Zen” a few years ago, I defined planning as preparation. But how do we become prepared for an uncertain future? Here are a few questions that help.
What matters to us?
What potential future changes could occur that we wouldn’t cause?
What potential future changes could occur that our actions could cause?
What is the percentage of un/certainty for each?
Who might have more certainty or certainty before we would?
What do we want to invest in being prepared for?
So what does planning look like for an uncertain future? It’s dreaming and translating dreams into small acts that we can commit to in the present. These questions help enrich the conversation. At the end of the day, intellectually honest planning does not produce a binder of anything. Only commitments to dreams and small acts.
0 Responses to “A new look at planning”