No Perfect Brackets; No Perfect Plans

100 million NCAA March Madness collegiate basketball brackets are filled out yearly, and they cannot correctly select all the winners. How do we expect to predict our organization’s future if we do not have the benefit of professional analysis and endless metrics? Are we so confident in our ability to forecast the future that we can write strategic plans as if we are completing a winning NCAA March Madness bracket? We might get some themes right, but the odds are against perfection.

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Footprints

What message do our footprints represent? Are we setting a path for others to follow? Do we intend to seek sanctuary and obscure our tracks? Might we follow the crowd and tread on historically worn trails? Is it possible to inspire those who follow?

It is easy to think of our footprints as follow-through. The activity has been completed, and we do not witness our tracks unless we commit to pivoting to observe our path. It is usually in difficult terrain that we might commit to a review of the terrain we have previously traveled. The propensity of time, our focus is only forward?

When do you consider the topography already covered? What is the lasting impact of your completed work?

Instincts

When do you persist, and when do you seek another path? Do you rely on instinct, metrics, feedback, emotions, and past experience? What drives your decision-making? How might it vary from moment to moment? What external factors impact your judgments? How much priority do you give your instinct when captured in a liminal moment?

Unfinished Business

My board term is concluding, and there is an opportunity for contemplation. What was completed, what was learned, what was overlooked, and what was left unfinished? Surprisingly, the unfinished business has my attention. Did we keep the organization in flight and positioned to fulfill its mission, or did we lose track of the navigation and propulsion resources?

There will be unfinished business; the question is, is it the work that matters or a list of emergency repairs?

Double Click

What topic would your team double-click on to investigate in more detail? If you preserved 15 minutes at the end of a team meeting and took a poll of the agenda items covered (or perhaps topics left off the agenda), which would the group expand upon?

How might an agenda support curiosity over performative habits?

What Would You Order?

If you were given a chance to make a wish list order on behalf of a cause you support, what would you order?

Now, look at the organization’s strategic plan. Is there an overlap, or do your dream orders and the organization’s strategic priorities travel opposite directions?

This is a memorable icebreaker at the start of a board and staff meeting. It quickly assesses whether the strategic framework is a living document or a list of ungrounded ideas that float like a dirigible, circling the air space above without delivering the cargo.

Nothing

If I post no insights today, are you the reader and I the contributor, like passing aircraft in the sky? Each is headed on our own itinerary but missing the chance to share a ride report on what lies ahead. When do you choose nothing, and when do you choose to share something?

Greenland

Flying over Greenland and the name generates more questions than clarity. Which names make you ponder their genesis?

Projection

What vision do you project? Is the image a mirror of your reality or a dystopian facsimile? Building trust and authenticity often centers around the alignment of words and deeds.

Baggage Claim

When you build infrastructure and offices to deal with misplaced items, there is an understanding that the system has cracks. Commercial airlines staff baggage claim desks where one can report lost or damaged items. It is an assumption that checking a bag with an airline does not guarantee it will arrive at its final destination or drop onto the carousel in the same condition as it started the journey. The aviation industry has prepared us for acceptable loss.

What disruptions and loss have we built into our enterprises? What disappointments are our customers trained to endure?

What-if-concepts

Empowering those who inspire so they excel at the work that matters.