This presentation is dedicated to strangenesses of personal planning of a strategist (strategic thinker responsible for an organisation). This is neither about strategic planning nor about technology of personal planning of controlled people.

1. of a strategist
by Miroslav Šebek
December 2012
(not so grey, I promise)

3. 1) Personal planning saves time of organization’s mastermind
2) Personal planning provides leader with necessary self- assurance
3) Personal planning provides leader with respect of his/her people
4) Personal planning allows leader to align him/herself with broader
organization’s intentions.
Really strict MUST, no HAS TO or SHOULD

4. During a battle or crisis, physical time is running at the same pace for
all players.
So previous preparation gives you clear advantage over unprepared
opponents.
Is planning such useful kind of preparation?
Yes, because while you are making your ´grand plan of battle´,
hundreds of small considerations are made. Just the small thoughts
will be at your hand even when the grand plan is already in ruins due
to unpredictable circumstances.

5. If you have spent time on planning, you feel ready and you can gain
advantage of first move. Otherwise, it´s almost impossible to pluck up
the courage to do it. Note: first move needn´t be offensive one.
Preparations for opponent´s attack may be even more demanding on
strategist´s self-assurance.
Awareness of effort already spent on planning protects you from
temptations to break your discipline in plan execution.
However, most important one is from the basket of negative
motivations: There is no more stupid wasting of scarce time in
crisis/battle than thinking about your own unpreparedness and well
prepared opponent! Be sure your brain will not refrain from such
thinking even if you had taken part in 100 seminars on positive thinking
before!

6. Your people need to see self-organized leader. Otherwise, they think
you are as disorganized as they are, with no moral right to lead them. A
weak king dominated by his advisors and noblemen has already
become an archetype of ridiculous figurehead!
What does a marshal´s baton look like? It obviously looks like rolled-up
plan, map or letter of authorization – archetypes of planning. People
don´t believe in leaders with bare hands.
For many people is event-oriented planning only one familiar way how
to organize matters. Take symbols of Order away from them and they
will start to believe in Chaos !

7. Personnal planning allows you not be inadvertenly in conflict with
needs of your organization.
Planning forces you to delegate, because needs of any bigger
organization are usually 24/7. Remember sleeping Hitler and his
confused generals during D-Day!
Planning allows you avoid apparent ´butterfly effect´ which could
inflict damage on your organization. Have you been postponing a buy
of new shoes, hardworking commander? When battle is underway, you
have the best time to do it! (Or would be better to conduct battle, having
uncomfortable shoes? Really important strategic question!)

9. „No plan survives first contact with the enemy„
Helmuth von Moltke the Elder
NO ! NO! And once more NO!

10. But where are YOU now ?

11. Even
more
Have more
time (also)
for planning
Reduce
worktime
needed to
meet goals
Increase
your
productivity
Make your
performance
more
organized
Expand
your
planning
ENTER HERE
full of doubts
Are you still unsatisfied
with your results?
Wait for me, I’m not
as efficient as you
are …
NOYES
Where are trap
doors to avoid?
Be careful !

12. Reduce
planning
Make your
performance
more chaotic
Lower your
productivity
Be in need
of extra
worktime to
meet goals
Have less
time for
planning
Even
more
You are right, all
personal planning
is for nothing…
Work more hard
instead!
ENTER HERE
in good faith
If time for
planning is still
> 0 If time for
planning is
finally zero
Where are secret
doors to salvation?
Think!

13. 1) Units of time – are neither human nor strictly hierarchical
2) Efficiency is not constant (let alone constantly growing) –
adjust always your planning for actual efficiency
3) Electronic schedulers – tempt you to creation of a quick
and simple INAPPLICABLE schedule
4) Planning must be also planned at right time
5) Gaps are real, deal with them in your planning
6) When even good planning is counter-productive … –
sometimes planning of an activity inherently collides with
purpose of the activity.
7) When planning is impossible … – don’t try to schedule e.g.
hours of creative thinking
8) Don’t fall in love with your plan - it’s just your tool

14. One second is defined as the duration of 9 192 631 770 periods of the
radiation corresponding to the transition between the two hyperfine
levels of the ground state of the caesium 133 atom.
So one hour is just duration of 3600 x 9 192 631 770 such periods, NOT a
natural length of a meeting, lecture or lunch !
How many weeks has a month? How many working days has a week?
Such irregularities in hierarchy of time units comprise serious obstacle
to copying and comparing of apparenly identical time units – obvious
opportunity for capable planners and trap for inept ones…

15. So you cannot simply take in account past efficiency of yours (your
people, your organization etc.) and use the data in a forecast.
In fact, there is usually inverse relation between current and future
efficiency : the more you are above your standard today, the more you
will be below tomorrow.
There is obviously vast area for self-delusion and cowardice face to face
with your sovereign in the ‘higher future efficiency’. You must never
accept current extra efficiency as new standard. Such panacea for all
troubles simply doesn’t exist !
Do you want to climb Peak of Stupidity? – Then MOTIVATE your
people to performance beyond their limits and enjoy subsequent
unpredictable periods of their total exhaustion and falling morale !
Don’t forget to pay extra bonuses for such pretty instability !
Give me bonus ! Give me bonus !
Give me bonus !
Give me bonus !
Give me bonus !
Give me bonus !

16. Electronic schedulers are perfect for controlled people. However, there
are some traps in their use for leaders:
1) To be dominated by an electronic device looks even worse than to be
dominated by an advisor.
2) The device is usually preset to offer you ‘standard’ time intervals for
your activities and ‘standard’ cycles for its repeating. It requires
much energy to overwrite permanently suggested ‘1 hour’ to ’55
minutes’ !
3) If you miss one ‘deadline’ in your daily schedule, the device will put
into your head for the rest of the day that you are inept, no matter
how unimportant the missed ‘deadline’ is. I feel the lack of function
‘postpone all scheduled events for the rest of the day’ !
4) Electronic scheduling represents serious obstacle for delegation. You
cannot simply hand the device over to your deputy and fall down
into bed!
To conclude: only your small personal issues could be scheduled in
your personal scheduler. The issues related to your organization must
be embedded into collective mind of its leaders.

17. Planning can save your time, but also some time takes.
See pyramid below:
Top two levels are too rare conditions of your brain for mere planning.
Third level (orange) is suitable for planning, but cannot be scheduled.
Fourth level (green) you can usually put into your daily schedule.
Fifth and sixths levels are unfit for planning due to low quality of thinking
Check continually quality of your thinking ! (not only for planning purposes !)
Great enlightments (complete strategic synthesis, deep insight,
sudden understanding) – interrupt all and write it down !
Creative mind (your brain wants to play
with useful ideas) – interrupt all non-
urgent activities and let it play
Bored mind (your brain is not busy enough,
so you can think about links between future
events in your plans) – you can execute
your current activity without interruptionFresh mind (you can think
systematically in logical way) –
common state of mind, you can
prepare rough structure of your
plans Tired mind (you are unable of systematical
and flawless thinking) – make only
technical preparations for planning or
collect hard data
Almost sleeping mind – do not
perform any changes in your
plans, do not bother your fresh
colleagues

18. So they (gaps) must also be present in every schedule.
What really represents ‘8:00-11:00 meeting; 11:00-12:00 lunch; ’ ?
In my view it represents pressure for forced ending of the meeting,
queue in dining room, hasty eating and nervous atmosphere.
Do you think that ‘8:00-10:50 meeting; 10:50-11:00 leave for lunch; 11:00-
12:00 lunch; ’ would be better?
No, you would still have the same problem – you would force a lot of
people to change their activity rapidly in the same time and place. Good
recipe on stampede !
The only rational solution is to leave gaps in the schedule: ‘8:00-10:50
meeting; 11:00-11:50 lunch; ’ .
Then some people are ‘SOONER’ and nobody is ‘LATE’ for scheduled
events …
Behind every nervous queue is one accurate planner !

19. Planning may be counter-productive at least in two ways:
1) It may destroy creative and relaxed atmosphere (or condition of
your brain) which you need for solving of a problem. You can
obviously schedule meeting of your team in any detail, but WHY ?
2) If your schedule (or its parts) is public in your organization and
your subordinates take it like a ´Holy Word´ : Stop machines and
start to clean up, our CEO is going to visit our factory!
Note: the two points are still only about PERSONAL planning of strategist (like rest of this presentation).
Strategic and organizational planning can also be counter-productive in many other ways !
Too obvious to be an independent point, but too important to be omitted :
Planning must never consume more time and resources than it saves!

20. You can’t plan:
a) such activities which are random by their nature
b) actions of your opponents without adequate data from intelligence
c) some time intervals of creative thinking, because you can’t switch your
brain’s hemispheres at your command
You can’t plan the things above and you can’t be fully prepared for them.
Nevertheless, you CAN ALWAYS be prepared better than your opponents are !
And the preparations could be and must be planned !
Naturally, there are some proven ways how to become creative instantly … See pictures below and become
feared Psychedelic commander !

21. Your plan is just your tool, it is neither your lover nor your baby !
Let your plan die when change occurs. Otherwise, your organization or
even your people will die. This is not a metaphor ! Too many leaders
lost all but their plans…
Make your opponents love their plans. Give them illusion their plans
are perfect. They will be completely blind and defenceless as young
lovers…

22. Personal planning of strategist http://www.slideshare.net/kerimek/personnal-
planning-of-strategist
My glosses to famous Sun Tzu’s The Art of War http://www.slideshare.net/kerimek/the-art-of-war-
glosses
Surprising roots of bad organizational culture http://www.slideshare.net/kerimek/roots-of-badculture
Surprising roots of bad organizational culture – shortened
version
http://www.slideshare.net/kerimek/roots-of-bad-culture-
shortened-version
Strategic management as group of human beings http://www.slideshare.net/kerimek/strategic-
management-as-group-of-human-beings
Enlargement of a small power plant http://www.slideshare.net/kerimek/enlargement-of-
a-small-power-plant-project-and-strategy