The Context

Over the years, I have achieved less-than-satisfying results with traditional planning and goal setting processes. More ethereal or spiritual approaches have also not manifested in ways with which I’m completely happy.

I’ve also had the benefit of walking with many of our clients as they go through a variety of strategic and other planning processes in their organizations.

This combination of experiences has evolved into a set of both/and practices that combine the best of both worlds--sort of a head/heart or ‘left brain/right brain’ approach. Both emergent and grounded…magical and methodical.

The Magic

The magic starts with creating the space to imagine…a space to explore a variety of possibilities and directions in order to create a vision of the desired end state.

It is both the physical space (might I recommend a particular villa in Puerto Aventuras, Mexico?) as well as the time space. The process requires time to step in and step out of the thinking and imagining, to do other things, to sleep on it, and come back to it. It’s iterative. And it is fun, freeing.

This is not the ‘sit in a conference room and brainstorm’ kind of exploration. It is playful and expansive. It requires a place that is nurturing and connected to nature. And, as a result, the vision emerges full-bodied…with color and imagery, sounds and scents.

And the vision is grounded in values--yours and the organization’s.

Values define what is truly most important. You know they are most important because you actually live them. You see them show up in how you spend your time and money.

I totally agree with Brené Brown, in Dare to Lead, when she emphasizes that fewer key values are better than more. Like three, not seven or 10. You and your team have to be able to remember them, and use them to guide your daily decisions.

The approach is magical in that it allows for what we do not yet see or know. It is rooted in the things that really matter, and a robust vision of the future, so it invites freedom to move and respond in flow with opportunities that may arise and changes that may occur in the environment.

The Method

That brings us to the method.

Assuming you have done the work above, David Thoreau’s quote is appropriate here.

"If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be. Now put the foundations under them."

Putting foundations under your vision involves looking at data to make decisions. And there is often loads of data, likely more than you need. In light of where you want to go, chose the vital few measures to best assess your current state, within an historical perspective.

Then, of course, using the data and the assumptions you make in interpreting it, you set specific and measurable targets. This is the stuff of traditional planning and you may be doing it quite well already.

A nuance I learned from one of my clients is to set two different targets based on your level of confidence in achieving them.

For example, he would ask his Directors to create a budget that they were ~90% confident they could achieve and one that they were ~60% confident they could achieve, the stretch budget. He would ask them to make the riskier budget their primary objective, and drive hard toward it. The second budget, the 'back-up' budget,' made it possible for the teams to fully invest themselves in experiments to streamline their processes or try new methods with far less risk.

His goal was to foster innovative thinking and creativity in all aspects of the business by seeing the stretch goals as appealing challenges rather than top-down requirements that put inordinate stress on them and their teams. A little bit of magic in the method, perhaps!?