Day 19 of 31 days to Creating Your Inspiring Personal Plan for 2012
By now, you should have developed a robust list of potential strategies that support your compelling Vision. You have potential strategies derived from using Gap Analysis (Step 14), using Strengths Analysis (Step 15), using Core Analysis (Step 16), using Support Analysis (Step 17), and using Change Analysis (Step 18). Hopefully, in each of these steps you have opened up your mind to a world of possibilities.
Well, in this step – the last before we start narrowing the list to the five or six strategies you will use in 2012 – I want to really, really stretch your thinking. And, I believe I have just the group of stars who can help me do that for you. But, before introducing you to these stars, I want to share some perspective on why possibility thinking is so challenging in strategic planning.
I doubt there are any of us who get up each day with the thought that we will be close minded. But, our past experiences tend to close our thinking. Over time, patterns of behaviors and consequences “train us” to believe that things work in a certain way. In most cases, the only take-away should be that something happened that way in the past. The fact that companies once were almost totally void of females in the executive suite did not mean that woman would always be excluded from the executive suite. The fact that, for 200 years of our history in the U.S., all of the Presidents where white did not mean that pattern would always be the case. Etc. Etc. Things change, notwithstanding our patterning that often suggests that no change is likely.
Left to our own, most of us would plan a future
that bears an uncanny resemblance to our past.
For that is what we have been trained to expect.
So, I have urged you to have an open mind in identifying potential strategies. But, I expect I have only been moderately successful in getting you to really be open to new possibilities. As a result, I want to call in some stars to stretch your thinking.:)
One of the individuals I respect most in terms of thinking about how the world is changing (and therefore about how we must change to be successful in a “new” world) is Seth Godin. Book by book, and blog post by blog post, Seth stretches my thinking. For me, he is one of the key ingredients in my dinosaur immunity pill that I take daily to (hopefully) ward off creeping dinosaurism.
Two years ago, Seth came out with yet another delightful book, What Matters Now. Published in an ebook format, this book is a compendium of quick read thoughts by more than 70 thought leaders:
The book is free and I highly recommend that you download your free copy here.
Each of the pieces, by Seth and the 70+stars, is a quick-read nugget of exceptional wisdom. I urge you to have your Vision statement printed out in front of you, along with a printout of Seth’s book. Read each of these short commentaries and pause to consider what if any additional strategies come to mind as a result of a given commentary.
In essence, you have the opportunity to add the wisdom of these wonderful thought leaders to the strategic thinking that wil power YOUR Vision.
Each of the ways (for identifying potential opportunities) that I have shared with you over the last week are powerful. But, this last step in identifying potential opportunities is the most powerful of all. This is a step that frees you from planning largely using your rear view mirror. And, this is the step that will bring back the young child creativity that is so often visible in young children…until our experience starts narrowing our thinking.
Try to identify at least five additional potential strategies for accelerating your success with your Vision. If possible, avoid just relisting a potential strategy you identified in the previous five steps. Your responsibility for this task is to identify five incremental potential strategies using the brilliance of Godin and his colleagues.
When you complete this step, your list of potential strategies should number more than 30! What a world of possibilities for you!! Tomorrow, I will share how you will refine and narrow this list so as to craft the five or six strategies that are most likely to make your Vision become your current reality throughout 2012.
When you have completed Step 19, you can access Step 20 here. If you want an anouncement every time a new step is posted, you can sign-up – to the right – to receive new steps by either RSS feed or email.
Please note: If you have arrived at this step first, it is not too late for you to join other high performers who are collaborating to follow the bite size steps that are unveiled here every day. Get started here.
This blog post was written by Dave Carpenter. Dave is a prolific author, inspiring speaker, and well-known consultant to professional service firms. Besides writing regularly for this blog, Dave’s writing can be seen in leading business and personal development publications. Dave is also the leader of the Accelerate Success mentoring program where he mentors high performers in a unique program designed to do great things for the favorite charity of each participant. If you are (1) a high performer who believes you still have untapped potential, and (2) passionate about a favorite charity, you may want to learn more about this powerful program. You can also follow Dave on Twitter, on Facebook, and/or on Google+.
