The Week in Pieces #22 - Planning With Purpose

Historically, I haven’t always planned well. I’ve dedicated very little time to thinking about action and consequence, in favour of letting things happen, reacting to them, and rationalising after the event that that was my intention all the time.

Reflecting further on that, I think I haven’t planned well because I didn’t really know what planning well meant, and what the intention of it is. As I spend more time with the concept, I realise that a plan cannot exist on its own - it needs a foundation to be built on, and to determine its value.

The value for us here is in the journey as well as the destination. The value of planning is the act itself - the discipline, the communication, the collaboration and the thought. Where the output of this work might be the first draft of a plan, the outcomes are so much more than that - more experience, stronger relationships, clearer thinking, more tools in the toolbox.

As I’ve started focussing on the process of planning, rather than the final plan, the notion of emergence is suggesting itself. At certain points, things come together: separate conversations find common themes; links appear between discrete tasks; visions and purposes start to align. How we can build better plans around the concept of emergence is a theme I look forward to exploring in more depth this year.

That’s it! Thanks for reading, have a good week and see you here next Monday.

Piers