Two Frames for Planning & Decision Making.
Video Transcript
Planning and decision making is hard at the best of times. In today’s world of uncertainty and ambiguity it can be even harder.
Here are 2 frames I like to use to review planning and decision making.
The first is:
Plans = knowledge + assumptions
Where knowledge is the facts, information, and skills your team has acquired through experience or education And assumptions are the views you hold about the characteristics of the future.
In my experience a good plan clearly defines what is knowledge and what are assumptions.
Most leaders are able to use past data points to identify what is knowledge. Assumptions however are rarely described with the same clarity.
That leads me to the second frame I like to use:
performance = Plans(reality)
Susan Scott in her book Fierce Conversations says
“No plan survives its collision with reality, and reality has a habit of shifting.”
When we roll out our plans it is the multiplier of reality that determines their success. A neutral reality sees our plans deliver as expected, a supportive reality helps our plans overperform and an unsupportive reality sees our planning struggle to deliver as expected.
In these frames the critical variables are assumptions and reality. And they are linked.
Our ability to create accurate assumptions about what the future may hold is critical to our ability to deliver results in the future. This increases the longer-term our planning becomes.
Our performance is directly linked to the reality we encounter when our plans are implemented. The more accurate our assumptions, the better our ability to perform in the reality that appears.
You should use the tool of foresight to improve your assumptions, thus strengthening your plans and helping you deliver higher levels of future performance.
Insight & foresight supports not-for-profit CEOs and Boards to make decisions for impact and future growth.
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