What can I say, almost without exception everybody feels they want to advise others, every text book and every management course obviously assumes that planning is critical. However, I don’t, or rather, I do but it’s important to understand where it actually fits into the scheme of things. The assumption I made about all those other sources is that if you actually get round to planning you must have a reason to do so, perhaps a good idea or you have been given responsibility for an achievement to target or there is a real need to solve a challenge. So given communal wisdom and any of the above scenarios the planning is awarded the first stage on the road to success.
For me, this importance that’s given to planning is fundamentally flawed. It is important, indeed critical but has to be placed at the correct stage towards ultimate success. You see, as soon as we accept all the conventional arguments and it’s elevation to the critical first stage we immediately limit our potential for greatness. I remember having Sir John Harvey Jones the famous British industrialist and management guru as a guest speaker at one of my events in Glasgow, in the mid 90’s. He, understanding my approach, stated to a bemused audience “If I could have my way again, I would sack the planners”. Now, you may be thinking “Don’t be ridiculous” but bear with me and you may just get a breakthrough in your thinking and ultimately your results.
If planning actually has such importance, when one begins to generate ideas for your future, you will inevitably have to limit the size and scope of your aspirations and the time frame for achievement in order to be able to fit them into a plan. So, whatever the outcome is, it will end up being realistic. Of course, this same approach recommends that you should have the plan ready right from the start and that goals should be realistic and achievable.
Now, check this out, anybody from the present day or history who had a huge impact have very rarely or have ever set goals that were limited this way and in the beginning they would have no idea HOW they were actually going to achieve their goal and therefore would have no plan. More over, if you think about it, nobody gets out of bed with a passion for a realistic and achievable goal. Yet this attribute seems to be a constant characteristic possessed by outstanding human beings.
Please accept that in the beginning those who achieved extraordinary results have not been unable to figure out how they’re going to get there and therefore plan but are more likely to be contemplating much more empowering questions which is WHY.
Asking precisely why you would want to achieve an outcome will press “your buttons” and ignite passion from within. You will find it drives you forward, it excites and compels. The greats from the past didn’t waste their time initially with the HOW question or planning because quite clearly they would not know how. In order to know how they would have to reduce the scope of their ambitions to a more manageable and realistic size and if they did, then one would expect that they would then be able to plan.
If you do look at those who have achieved greatness, they do get passionate and compelled to constantly reviewing their vision in their mind and as a result ideas begin to form in their mind that show them a way forward. They find that people, places and even coincidences begin to come to their awareness, and as they do, they then begin to formulate plans and strategies that inevitably bring them success. More important perhaps, because they are not hung up on the need to plan and stick to it they are more flexible and can take advantage of opportunities, insights and innovation as it shows up because, it inevitably will.
So, yes planning is important but only after you have sold yourself on what you truly want but are not limited to what you currently think is possible. The more you decide to commit to constantly thinking about your goal having already been achieved, right at the beginning, then you will trigger creativity and precisely the bits and pieces will come together to form your plan as you travel to your destination. I strongly recommend that you do some work on this, formulate in your mind, that which truly turns you on, that which really excites you. Think about it morning, noon and night and decide to take action on the ideas and solutions that come into your awareness and you will succeed. You know how to plan, you actually know the importance of planning but maybe you didn’t realise that you only do so, once you have convinced yourself that your extraordinary idea can in fact be achieved because you believe it!
Good luck and keep smiling,
Jack