Is Planning Stunting Your Productivity?

Recently I released my Satellite Development document to my network and within it I gave the explicit instruction "Do Not Plan" which has raised some questions. It's a great question. Actually, it is an excellent question because the whole design of creating your own satellite feed is to be able to architect, manage and execute with greater effectiveness.

So, why would I instruct leaders not to plan?

It's simple. The most dangerous tool you currently have is the plan you are already holding in your hands. Why? Because the plan makes assumptions that you likely do not question every day. Your plan powerfully controlls your perspective, attention, energy and behavior not to mention where you spend your organization's time and capital. Sometimes these assumptions are fairly innocent. Other times they cost leaders their jobs. Or a leader may direct his or her organization with a misguided plan leaving thousands without a job. Worse yet, leaders can steer nations into missteps costing not just jobs but lives.

Simply put, your current plan obscures your ability for pattern recognition. Planning imposes patterns onto life. This is part good news as it enables you to press into and influence your organization in important ways. The bad news is that it obscures one of your greatest human intelligences. If you need to perform at your peak, you need a satellite feed.

Every day you should be getting out of your plans such that you can adaptively respond to life in creative and innovative ways. Gain more altitude. Get more perspective. This is what your satellite feed does for you.

Stop the planning that imposes your own agendas, ideologies and expectations. Allow your brain to do what it does best if more data is allowed into your mind: pattern recognition. New patterns, when assembled from your orbiting data feeds include your past plans and integrate them into a more coherent and powerful strategy for moving forward.

Good luck with your center point training.

~Rob McNamara
Harvard University Teaching Fellow, Leadership Coach  & Author of The Elegant Self
www.RobMcNamara.com