Oh, planning… We need you, but I’ll be honest, sometimes you take more than you give. In some cases, you unintentionally bring rigidity, stress, and discomfort to contexts where we may be seeking flexibility, playfulness, and openness. And that may play out contrary to what we aim for. We may end up with bored people, mediocre outcomes, and strictly delivered failures, but no one would ever put the blame on planning! It’s like an invincible actor that no one criticizes or questions. But let’s question it for a moment, shall we?
The problem is that there’s a tendency to think you cannot go wrong with too much planning. People usually think that the more you do it, the better. The more detailed, the better. But nothing in the world works that way, there’s always a line that crosses us to the excessive.
I’ve experienced workshops that are planned down to the exact minute (I’m also guilty of some of those), interviews defined down to all the exact questions to ask, sprints where teams squeeze in so much that no one has a minute to waste, or deadlines used as a tool to push teams to deliver earlier than they normally can.
These are all understandable, human ways of acting in a world obsessed with fast-paced work cadences, accelerated outcomes, and expectation of instant results.
And on the other side, there’s a probable optimum space, where a healthy balance of doing things is prominent. With regard to planning, I believe that space is where everyone is comfortable with what’s going to happen by when, but it still gives people the room to play, to go off track a little bit, have chances to try things and if it doesn’t work, you can still come back and deliver on your tasks without risking missing a deadline.
Without that space to explore and play, everything becomes straight-forward ticking box activities. “Executing upon clearly defined tasks” sounds like a great thing to do at work, but is it, really?
Work, at least for me and I’m sure for many other creatives, is not about executing upon what had previously been decided. Every moment can be a creative opportunity to try different directions, to take alternative actions, and to try finding better options. And many of those options, you wouldn’t be able to imagine before you really get going, before you deep dive into the subject matter, and only then you’re only able to see what else you can try.
I think we need more support for creativity in the workplace, because, without creativity, there’s no way of creating exceptional work. And even if the results are not exceptional, creativity leads to having fun!
Unfortunately, there’re so many people in the business world who think fun doesn’t have a place in the workplace, which is another problem on its own. So how do we change our lenses, and look at work as a place to realize our creative potentials and have fun doing it? Why do many people stick to a workplace as a place to mostly suffer, and earn things the hard way?
Maybe these are too big questions to open up in this post, but I hope it’s clear that I’m not advocating a world where we tear off all plans, and run free and do whatever we want. I’ve experienced that talking about fun sometime gets you affiliated with that type of thinking. 🙂
So how do we find our balance in a world that somehow lost its balance? Big questions for a small post on planning…