For the next two weeks I am going to be posting two delicately related topics, Planning and Improvising.
I acknowledge that some of this entry in particular could be misconstrued to be focused on “success”, but I would encourage you to think critically about what success means, and to critically asses the deeper goals that define true achievement…
Game Plans
There is no doubt that there is a high correlation between a well thought out plan and the likelihood of meeting goals. Plans are the things that map a pathway of executable steps towards an end goal. If Goals and Objectives are the end, than plans and processes should articulate the means to achieve the “end”.
From training plans to business plans, planning can be a valuable process to help bridge the gap between where we want to go, and where we are today. Like a game of chess, plans get us calculating a series of interrelated moves that will strategically put the odds of self defined success in our favor. The process of planning asks two fundamental questions, “Where do I want to go?” and “How will I get there?” However, there are a few cautions in planning that make a life lived strictly by a stated “plan” dangerous, or at least introduce an element of personal risk to the equation. Two main areas of risk are:
1. Misidentification of Goals
2. Over preoccupation with processes
Misidentification of Goals
Plans can be a huge element that aids forward progress and acheivement of goals, but plans themselves are only effective to the extent that we start with the right answer to the “Where do I Want to go?” question. If we incorrectly diagnose for ourselves where we’re trying to go, or the right “destination”, we may execute a plan perfectly, but we’ll end up in the wrong place.
Lets assume that a business has a goal to grow to the size of 1,000 employees and $10 million in revenue, Today, the business has 20 employees and is earning, $4 million in revenue. What happens when it turns out that 1,000 employees and $10 million of sales results in a situation where the company no longer has a viable business model and is losing money in their bottom line. The business can execute a plan to achieve their goal, but as it may turn out, it’s the wrong goal.
As a second example, lets say a student is assigned a project in school to do a report on one of the 50 states in the US. In order to get awarded an A on the project the student needs to gather, 5 photographs unique to whatever state is selected, that’s it. If our example student decides that a 40 page paper outlining the history and uniqueness of his state would be much better that 5 simple pictures, executes a plan, and finishes a 40 page written project as opposed to the assigned 5 photograph project, what is the end result? Failure! Even if we have perfectly executed plans, when we improperly select goals, we fail.
When we set the wrong goals, we make the wrong plans.
Preoccupation with Process
The second risk, has to do with losing vision for the correct goals for the sake of the plans which were written to get us there. Simply put, when we place too much value on the plans themselves and fail to focus on what the plans were drawn up to achieve, we risk missing accomplishment of the end goal. Sometimes it’s hard to identify when plans need to change or when plans actually detract from progress towards our objectives. If we become obsessed with the road map, we risk failing to identify that we’re actually driving down the wrong road.
In a spiritual sense, this risk manifests as being religious while being detached from God. When we become too preoccupied with law and process, we miss the nature of God, and what he’s really trying accomplish. We become Pharisees, legalistic, and in all reality rigid and robotic in all things pertaining to God. We do not love and enjoy Him, we simply behave.
This process preoccupation risk, is prevalent in a variety of venues, business planning, personal plans, training plans, financial planning…sometimes plans need to change and when we loose focus of the goals, we reduce our lives to systematic pursuit of task while never really making any progress. If we set the right goals and we stay focused on the end game, we need to put ourselves in a position to realize that things don’t always play out like we envision, and that change is a necessary part of goal achievement.
If our founding fathers thought it necessary to have a process to ratify and change the laws (or plan) that governed this Democratic Republic, in hopes that if in the event that the plan to preserve freedom needed to change, it could. Shouldn’t we afford ourselves the same ability?
If we become too preoccupied with the plans themselves, they mutate into the primary focus, while all the long, the truly important thing (the goal) goes unattended.
It is entirely possible to succeed at a plan, and fail at the goal. Just as it is entirely possible to be “good” or “religious”, and miss God.
Restructuring
For most of my professional career, I’ve worked in the field of restructuring. I have dealt with and aided businesses that have gotten to a point where the plan needs to be rewritten to survive. Needless to say, I have learned much about what happens when plans need to change…and also what happens when plans need to change and they don’t. I was talking with my Dad a few months back about business, and he properly reminded me that, “The best businesses are always restructuring.” I believe that restructuring has some big time significance for other areas of life beyond corporate organization policies…restructuring by definition is the rebuilding or re-engineering of our plans.
Restructuring is what happens when plans change; it is the adjustment of either plans or objectives and sometimes both. Sometimes in life, we get to a point when we realize that there is a disconnect between where we want to go, and how we’re going about getting there, which leads us to change. If insanity is defined as doing the same action while expecting a different result, the restructuring is what we do when we want to get sane…its when we change what we do.
I believe that there are a few checks and balances we can build into our lives that help us identify when we need change; accountability and community being the primary mechanisms for identifying when and how we need to rethink our “plans”. Third party input provides guidance that we cannot easily arrive at on our own. When we have others who can objectively and critically look at our plans and our goals, we afford ourselves a perspective that is detached from our own psychological garbage. We all too easily get wrapped up in what we’re doing and where we’re going, that without good advisors, we risk careening through life with our heads down, blind to dangers ahead. There is a reason that top level athletes have coaches, there is a reason that the biggest and best run businesses employ third party advisors, there is a reason that many addicts require intervention to deal with their problems…there are certain risks and problems that not only are more easily identified from the outside, but some problems legitimately NEED to be diagnosed externally. Relationships afford us a level of sanity that helps us stay on the right track; much good comes when we get perspective that is completely detached for the delirium we are susceptible to when left to our own way.
I guess in reality the important things here are not goals or plans, but rather having the relational infrastructure in our lives the affords us the ability to assess both a need and a means to change. God’s grace, is a means of letting us constantly get restructured, it gives us a chance to change. While God has the benefit of making and crafting perfect plans, we do not. Restructuring is what happens when we identify a deviation in our plans from God’s plans, and we initiate change to realign ourselves with God.
To augment what my Dad said, “The best people are always restructuring or getting restructured”. This is not an obsession with self improvement, but rather it is a constant realigning or ourselves with God, it is accepting the need to be restructured, the need for constant change and re-creation. Just as with anything, it’s a long process…but over time we find ourselves not simply dealing with moments that require change, but embracing it.
Embracing Change,
CP
Next week, I will write on improvising, or creating balance between the plans and change.
I acknowledge that some of this entry in particular could be misconstrued to be focused on “success”, but I would encourage you to think critically about what success means, and to critically asses the deeper goals that define true achievement…
Game Plans
There is no doubt that there is a high correlation between a well thought out plan and the likelihood of meeting goals. Plans are the things that map a pathway of executable steps towards an end goal. If Goals and Objectives are the end, than plans and processes should articulate the means to achieve the “end”.
From training plans to business plans, planning can be a valuable process to help bridge the gap between where we want to go, and where we are today. Like a game of chess, plans get us calculating a series of interrelated moves that will strategically put the odds of self defined success in our favor. The process of planning asks two fundamental questions, “Where do I want to go?” and “How will I get there?” However, there are a few cautions in planning that make a life lived strictly by a stated “plan” dangerous, or at least introduce an element of personal risk to the equation. Two main areas of risk are:
1. Misidentification of Goals
2. Over preoccupation with processes
Misidentification of Goals
Plans can be a huge element that aids forward progress and acheivement of goals, but plans themselves are only effective to the extent that we start with the right answer to the “Where do I Want to go?” question. If we incorrectly diagnose for ourselves where we’re trying to go, or the right “destination”, we may execute a plan perfectly, but we’ll end up in the wrong place.
Lets assume that a business has a goal to grow to the size of 1,000 employees and $10 million in revenue, Today, the business has 20 employees and is earning, $4 million in revenue. What happens when it turns out that 1,000 employees and $10 million of sales results in a situation where the company no longer has a viable business model and is losing money in their bottom line. The business can execute a plan to achieve their goal, but as it may turn out, it’s the wrong goal.
As a second example, lets say a student is assigned a project in school to do a report on one of the 50 states in the US. In order to get awarded an A on the project the student needs to gather, 5 photographs unique to whatever state is selected, that’s it. If our example student decides that a 40 page paper outlining the history and uniqueness of his state would be much better that 5 simple pictures, executes a plan, and finishes a 40 page written project as opposed to the assigned 5 photograph project, what is the end result? Failure! Even if we have perfectly executed plans, when we improperly select goals, we fail.
When we set the wrong goals, we make the wrong plans.
Preoccupation with Process
The second risk, has to do with losing vision for the correct goals for the sake of the plans which were written to get us there. Simply put, when we place too much value on the plans themselves and fail to focus on what the plans were drawn up to achieve, we risk missing accomplishment of the end goal. Sometimes it’s hard to identify when plans need to change or when plans actually detract from progress towards our objectives. If we become obsessed with the road map, we risk failing to identify that we’re actually driving down the wrong road.
In a spiritual sense, this risk manifests as being religious while being detached from God. When we become too preoccupied with law and process, we miss the nature of God, and what he’s really trying accomplish. We become Pharisees, legalistic, and in all reality rigid and robotic in all things pertaining to God. We do not love and enjoy Him, we simply behave.
This process preoccupation risk, is prevalent in a variety of venues, business planning, personal plans, training plans, financial planning…sometimes plans need to change and when we loose focus of the goals, we reduce our lives to systematic pursuit of task while never really making any progress. If we set the right goals and we stay focused on the end game, we need to put ourselves in a position to realize that things don’t always play out like we envision, and that change is a necessary part of goal achievement.
If our founding fathers thought it necessary to have a process to ratify and change the laws (or plan) that governed this Democratic Republic, in hopes that if in the event that the plan to preserve freedom needed to change, it could. Shouldn’t we afford ourselves the same ability?
If we become too preoccupied with the plans themselves, they mutate into the primary focus, while all the long, the truly important thing (the goal) goes unattended.
It is entirely possible to succeed at a plan, and fail at the goal. Just as it is entirely possible to be “good” or “religious”, and miss God.
Restructuring
For most of my professional career, I’ve worked in the field of restructuring. I have dealt with and aided businesses that have gotten to a point where the plan needs to be rewritten to survive. Needless to say, I have learned much about what happens when plans need to change…and also what happens when plans need to change and they don’t. I was talking with my Dad a few months back about business, and he properly reminded me that, “The best businesses are always restructuring.” I believe that restructuring has some big time significance for other areas of life beyond corporate organization policies…restructuring by definition is the rebuilding or re-engineering of our plans.
Restructuring is what happens when plans change; it is the adjustment of either plans or objectives and sometimes both. Sometimes in life, we get to a point when we realize that there is a disconnect between where we want to go, and how we’re going about getting there, which leads us to change. If insanity is defined as doing the same action while expecting a different result, the restructuring is what we do when we want to get sane…its when we change what we do.
I believe that there are a few checks and balances we can build into our lives that help us identify when we need change; accountability and community being the primary mechanisms for identifying when and how we need to rethink our “plans”. Third party input provides guidance that we cannot easily arrive at on our own. When we have others who can objectively and critically look at our plans and our goals, we afford ourselves a perspective that is detached from our own psychological garbage. We all too easily get wrapped up in what we’re doing and where we’re going, that without good advisors, we risk careening through life with our heads down, blind to dangers ahead. There is a reason that top level athletes have coaches, there is a reason that the biggest and best run businesses employ third party advisors, there is a reason that many addicts require intervention to deal with their problems…there are certain risks and problems that not only are more easily identified from the outside, but some problems legitimately NEED to be diagnosed externally. Relationships afford us a level of sanity that helps us stay on the right track; much good comes when we get perspective that is completely detached for the delirium we are susceptible to when left to our own way.
I guess in reality the important things here are not goals or plans, but rather having the relational infrastructure in our lives the affords us the ability to assess both a need and a means to change. God’s grace, is a means of letting us constantly get restructured, it gives us a chance to change. While God has the benefit of making and crafting perfect plans, we do not. Restructuring is what happens when we identify a deviation in our plans from God’s plans, and we initiate change to realign ourselves with God.
To augment what my Dad said, “The best people are always restructuring or getting restructured”. This is not an obsession with self improvement, but rather it is a constant realigning or ourselves with God, it is accepting the need to be restructured, the need for constant change and re-creation. Just as with anything, it’s a long process…but over time we find ourselves not simply dealing with moments that require change, but embracing it.
Embracing Change,
CP
Next week, I will write on improvising, or creating balance between the plans and change.
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