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studying. You might admit that some of your plans didn’t
work out perfectly but the
problem isn’t a better planning method. We’ve all had a great deal of practice planning.
Different planning styles can help, but they can’t solve the core problem of uncertainty.
That is, you have no idea what the future holds.
When you need to find a way to make the unknown tolerable the best option is sim-
ply not to plan. This may seem crazy, but a «flexible planning»
model is to be ideal for
areas where there is a heavy amount of uncertainty.
Flexible planning isn’t planning in the traditional sense. Traditional planning in-
volves looking at your outcome and devising a route to reach there. Flexible planning de-
fies this entirely by not focusing on an end result. Instead, the emphasis is placed on do-
ing actions that will place you in more favourable positions.
Traditional planning starts with your objective and works backwards from that.
Let’s say you were planning out what career choice you wanted. A traditional approach
would be
to work out your career choice, possible firms to work with, education you’ll
need, classes you’ll need to take and how to find your education. Each step is determin-
ing the one before.
The problem with this method is it cleanly erases uncertainty along the way. What if
changes in the industry and firms you want to work for start downsizing? What if your
school of choice doesn’t accept you? What if you don’t like
the classes or eventual ca-
reer? What if you can’t fund tuition?
Flexible planning starts where you are and works forward. So your current position
might be limited post-secondary schooling and funds. Flexible planning suggests that
many outcomes are favourable and that the paths to get there are almost infinite. Instead
your job becomes to put yourself in increasingly more favourable position.
The next step might be to get some schooling, apply to different Universities and
scholarship programs or work to earn money for tuition. The best step is one that has the
most favourable options flowing from it.
In business context this would mean planning your business so that it would have
the largest amount of opportunities available. This way if one of your original plans fails,
you can easily switch to another.
(http://www.lifehack.org/articles/featured/why-your-plans-fail.html)
Discuss the following points in small groups:
1. Why do so few things go according to plan?
2. Do you agree that the problem of uncertainty can’t be solved?
3. It is mentioned that «Flexible planning suggests that many outcomes are favour-
able and that the paths to get there are almost infinite. Instead
your job becomes to put
yourself in increasingly more favourable position». Do you agree?
4. Can we say that people are bad at planning?
5. Do you agree that flexible planning has advantages over traditional planning?
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