025 Your Planning is More Important Than Your Plan
influence-025-planning-is-more-important-than-the-plan-01-audio
This is Dr. Tori. Welcome to the Influence Every Day show where we make every day better and we influence for good.
The year is 1987. Mike Tyson is being interviewed and being asked about how he's going to deal with the plans that his opponent has for him. And his response was, "Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth." "Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth."
Now there's another saying from the mid to late 1800s by a Prussian field marshal named Helmut von Moltke. He said, "No battle plan survives first contact with the enemy." "No battle plan survives first contact with the enemy." Both of these sayings from Mike Tyson and the Prussian Field Marshal, appear to contradict a saying that we have all heard, which is, "Failing to plan is planning to fail." "Failing to plan is planning to fail." They appear to contradict each other.
But you know what? We have lots of proverbs, idioms, sayings that appear to contradict each other:
"Actions speak louder than words" - "The pen is mightier than the sword."
"He who hesitates is lost" - "Haste makes waste."
"Birds of a feather flock together" - "Opposites attract."
We have lots of these sayings that appear to contradict each other, and oftentimes they do. They do contradict each other, and you just apply them in each of the different settings. But in this case, "failing to plan is planning to fail," does NOT contradict "everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth," nor does it contradict "No battle plan survives first contact with the enemy."
The reason these don't contradict each other is because the word "plan" is a verb, is not a noun. In other words, it doesn't say failing to have plans is planning to fail. It's failing to plan. You see, planning is the issue, not plans.
Plans are oftentimes static. Now you can adjust them in real time, but plans are things that you have, something that you have, you've written it down, you have it a map, you have red, yellow, green report cards. Where are we on this plan? We have an annual operating plan.
We have these things, and I'm not saying there's something wrong with plans, but what I am saying is that you have to be prepared to adjust. And the value is in the planning, not in the plan itself. The plan can serve as a reminder. The plan can serve as a, where are we now relative to where we said we were going, but all along the way, it requires assessment and adjustment if needed.
Okay, so planning prepares you. Planning in the world of non conscious processing, hypnosis, hypnotherapy, influence, NLP, neurolinguistic programming and these sort of things. In that world, the planning is a form of priming. It's a form of preparation. It's a form of preparing your neurology, your mindset, your physiology, your skillset.
It's preparing for what you're about to face. What you're about to face is dynamic, especially if it involves people, especially it involves a large organization, especially it involves a larger organization interfacing with the public.
It's a complex system and you're interacting with a public or with public, private, government, You're interacting with all of these. That is a very dynamic, nuanced, moving scenario. So the plans, that's great. You can assess where you are. They're important, but far more important is the act of
Look, when a first responder shows up to an emergency, they're responding to something that they have not seen precisely exactly in that format before. But what's happened is their planning has prepared them for a dynamic situation. Their planning has prepared them for the scenarios that they might face. for the sensory experiences they're going to have. for the emotions they're going to experience.
It's prepared them for the communication with other teammates. It's prepared them for how others might respond to the emergency and how they can deescalate or create an environment of safety or what have you. they're running into a scenario that is dynamic and it's urgent.
Let's talk about plans versus planning when it comes to difficult conversations. So just like that first responder goes into a scenario and the scenario is different than they've ever encountered before, but they're prepared for the dynamism, they're prepared for the nuance. So too with difficult conversations.
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Now, imagine if you're about to have a difficult conversation with somebody.
You've prepared X, Y, and Z points that you're going to make. You've prepared your own nerves to get ready for that situation. Maybe you've optimized the time of day. Maybe you optimize the location. It's actually a great place to have a difficult conversation. You think it's going to go well, and then you hit point X goes well.
You hit point Y and they blow up. Now, were you prepared for their angry response or the other way around. You could get angry. When typically when somebody is having a high stakes conversation and the other person responds with some sort of aloofness or I don't care, sometimes that can trigger an anger response.
Or a almost a vengeful fine okay, fine. I'll show you, kind of thing. Are you prepared for that? Because that's not healthy. That's not a healthy response. So this is why in scenario based training, we'll have scenarios. And rapidly switch out the roles, rapidly switch out the scenarios, but each time practicing the skills.
Practice the skill, flip the scenario, flip the role, practice the skill, flip the scenario, flip the role, practice the skill. Keep going through that and then add emotional modifiers. What happens if the person is crying and feeling despair while you're having this conversation?
What happens if the person responds with anger and gets very aggressive? What happens if the person responds with some sort of aloofness, right? In each of these, if you prepare for them ahead of time, this is part of the planning, is the skill development. planning, skill development over time, seeing patterns, recognizing patterns.
So the practical side of priming as part of planning, one is scenario training. Another is sensory priming. What does it look like? What does it feel like? What does it sound like? What is my experience internally? Sometimes you can accomplish this with visualization.
Okay, imagine it's going well, and then you imagine it all of a sudden takes a turn. And then how will you respond in that scenario? So you could do that with visualization. You can do it with, Simulation, The other thing is there's the emotional prep. It's not just seeing it, feeling it, experiencing it. It's also the emotional prep of what happens if it escalates? How do I deescalate? How do I get my state to the, To a place that is the healthy way to de escalate and the healthy way to respond.
This is vital. Sometimes they call it emotional anchoring, to prepare, to prime for specific emotions, If you know you're going into a dynamic situation, and you understand that it's going to change, then that change doesn't disrupt you. then there's that flexibility mindset, that idea that I have to be nimble because this situation is dynamic, it's nuanced,
So the point in all this is simply to say, focus less on perfecting your plans and more on preparing to adapt. and preparing for the scenarios that you're about to face and be prepared to adjust the plans in real time. I'll see you in the next episode.
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