Man plans, and the gods laugh.
There is a lot that solid planning can do, and much that it cannot. Here are some of the key things that I have learned about change planning over the 40+ years I have been developing–and executing– change-related plans. (For more insights on change planning, see my Plan the Journey blog posts.)
Remember, you have your change story. You have early elements of preparation: you’ve inventoried your anchors; your resources, resource needs, and resource gaps; and the changes you will need to make; you have developed an initial set of milestones. All of these serve as input to your planning process.
Plan for What You Don’t Want!
One of the big mistakes we often make when planning a change is failing to think about what we don’t want to happen. Sometimes we catch the absence of this planning when we come face-to-face with an “Oh, No!” And, sometimes we only discover it after the fact. [Read more…]
ait!
With 93 posts focused on successfully executing your most difficult changes, a lot of territory has been covered in this blog. For an old student of change like me, keeping track of all the insights is in my DNA, but for most of my readers and those I work with, it can get overwhelming. To provide you with a quick reference, the next several posts are going to focus on providing an overview of the change journey, as well offering some critical reminders for each aspect of the trip. You can use the search function (or contact me) for additional information on any of the topics I cover.
“This is a great moment, when you see, however, distant, the goal of your wondering. The thing which has been living in your imagination suddenly becomes a part of the tangible world.” Freya Stark
What does poetry have to do with personal or professional change?