Planning is for Fools

You may know that you can’t say what you’re really thinking at work. Well, you could but then you might not have a job. And, maybe you’re thinking nice things like, “Wow, it is so great to walk in on a Monday morning to the hundreds of emails that are in my inbox, the five outstanding priority projects and dropping your plan for tackling them (the one you devised in the shower that morning) because yet

again another fire has taken top top priority. ” In fact, maybe you’re saying to the person on the phone who called you just as you were removing your jacket, “I will absolutely help you with this emergency, happy to help.” But maybe what you’re thinking is, “Please don’t call me again to help with your emergency. In fact I’m putting in for an anonymous phone exchange as soon as we hang up. If I keep managing your emergencies, I’ll never get my work done and guess what? Come performance time, despite my impressive heroics in putting out fires, I won’t have met my goals!” And if I don’t meet my goals, I don’t get a good raise or bonus. And, money is important to me. With money, I can pay my bills and buy food and clothes. I can bring the food to work and wear the clothes to the office so you see, if you would like me to keep showing up, fires need to be prevented so I can burn through the goals.

I am one for planning as much as possible. I have communication strategies, plans, to do lists and calendar reminders. However, when the wind shifts to new priorities, these tools taunt you instead of help you as they try to capture your attention. You see them from the corner of your eye but must ignore them for the sake of the latest plight.