"What if?" - the seventh question
To be successful, you need a clear plan and discipline. Outline your goals, plan them well and make sure to follow up and adapt - then you can achieve anything you want!
Yes, you have heard it too. Your manager brings it up every now and then and your HR department provides a framework for setting goals and following up performance. (Maybe even adjusting your salary accordingly, but I wouldn't bet on it.)
In setting out a good plan we have a set of 6 questions to guide us: The plan will focus on four of them that we can measure and follow up: Who? What? Where? When? Then we have two other common questions that fall in the tiers above and below: Why? How?
What if? This is the topic of my article today, question number seven - that doesn't even have a word of its own. I have always known that I am one of the challenging "resources" for managers, colleagues and HR when it comes to planning, and I have been told that this is because I am a so called "why person". True, but not the whole truth. I have realised that even more, I am a person asking myself - and others - What if? Because this is the creative question, the source of change and innovation. And also - deviation from current plan.
A professor at the Stockholm University KTH described to me the competence ladder: When we start working, it takes 6 months to learn the formal routines, and it takes 2 years to learn the vital but informal parts of your work, the unwritten rules. But it takes 5 years to gain the competence that allows you to question the current routines, come up with brand new ideas and develop the work through revolution rather than evolution. A problem is that we reward people, from a career perspective, for changing positions more frequently than this. Another problem is that this volatility leads to a planning culture focused on what can be measured.
I really value a good plan, providing me with direction and details, and I also value the creative process that falls outside this plan. I keep poking my colleagues, customers and network with ideas - not because this is a part of my plan, but because it is part of who I am. Because it makes life and business more interesting, and adds true value.
What if organisations would value plans and creativity as equally important?