The Big Reset
How to make Annual Planning a fresh start
“So, I’m about to start my annual planning process for the year. But I already know what the plan is going to be. Do absolutely everything we did this year, but better, with less resources…and add three or four slightly random new things on top.”
CMO. Anonymous.
If these words sound familiar to you, maybe it’s time for a reset.
Whether it’s the post-COVID hangover, the cult of busyness, or the economic squeeze, it’s started feeling all-too-easy to give up on planning the future.
But as people, as teams, as businesses, that’s something we just can’t put up with.
We need progress, we need growth, we need common causes to work towards.
And that means Annual Planning is something to take seriously.
It can’t just be business as usual.
It’s not easy to make Annual Planning a Big Reset.
Next year is close enough that you can almost imagine things being exactly the same as they are now. But also far enough away that preparing for it doesn’t seem urgent.
Therein lies the challenge, but also the power, of Annual Planning. It’s the overlap between the Now and the Future, where all the important stuff happens.
This is the space where you can make big changes in your life, without throwing away your security. Where you can lay the foundations of a future business, without experiencing a meltdown from your customers or your colleagues.
In this crucial moment, the most important ingredient of success is overcoming the tyranny of the now, and thinking future-back. But that’s something people find really hard. You are up against bad habits, and underlying fears. And as Lianre Robinson, one of our LookUP Experts and a pioneer in innovation and AI, explains here - fear of change is a quietly powerful brake on progress…
The fundamental purpose of Annual Planning is not mainly financial, or operational…it’s human. It’s about focusing your motivation. It’s about aligning the people on whose efforts the Plan depends. It’s about providing energy.
That’s the Big Reset: a focus of hearts, minds, and energy on the Future you are trying to make, rather than the grip of the Now.
Thinking Future-Back: the three key barriers
So, this month, we’ll be helping you to LookUP and think differently about Annual Planning, and we’ll give you the tools to make it a Big Reset.
We’ve reviewed a lot of literature, and we’ll aim to bring together the quite disparate thinking that exists around future vision, strategic decision-making, and the art of making things happen.
We’ve spoken to economists, AI experts, product innovators, and champions for social change, and learnt how they’ve been able to push things forward.
In the process we’ve found three key problems in how people deal with the near future. In this piece we are going to dig into them a little bit, and some of the ways of thinking that can help to unlock them.
At the end of this piece we’ll introduce you to our Big Reset framework, which has a series of tools which you can use to get your Annual Planning off on the right foot, and make the chances of a Big Reset much more likely.
For our paid subscribers, you can access our Big Reset Framework walkthrough here, and in our LookUP Live session at the end of the month.
But let’s get stuck into our problems!
We live in a time of Black Swans, and information overload. COVID-19. Global conflicts. Information wars. It’s thrown our sense of rhythm, our confidence in the economic cycle, our sense of the pace of change.
At the same time, media is everywhere, and we’re hyper-aware of all the change that’s happening in the world on every dimension. It can be totally overwhelming.
So we’re dealing with a context where the Now can feel omni-present and relentless, and the Future feels unknowable. It’s not surprising that in some cases the sum of Annual Planning has become a process of repeating and optimising what’s already happening, whilst trying to stay in a cat-like state of alertness and reactivity for any and all possibilities of what might come.
Well that’s not healthy, nor productive. Let’s reset!
If the future doesn’t feel real, the first job is to know what future you want to make, and to make it feel as real as possible. Here are three questions that will help you to get there…
Where are we going?
Good Planning may end in detail, but it starts with imagination.
And, as our LookUP Expert, and Founder of The People, Kian Bakhtiari explains here, imagination has never been in shorter supply, or been more needed.
Sometimes, we can get so worried and overwhelmed analysing all the forces driving ‘The Future’, that we forget to imagine ‘Our Future’, which is really the only task that matters in this part of the process. In the full ‘Cone of Possibilities’ (see below) that stretches out in front of us, our job isn’t to describe every possible, plausible or probable future. Our job is to build a picture of the future we would prefer (the red zone below).
What’s essential is that we are able to describe that future. It’s an imagined concept, and if we don’t define it with some imagination, we won’t be able to hang on to it, and others won’t be able to understand it.
It needs clear language, hard edges, and bold imagery. And then we need to start giving it some texture.
What change matters?
One great way to bring texture to a future state is by describing it in terms of shifts in things that people already see as important to their work and their lives.
We all want to know what will change (and what will be preserved.)
In searching for these shifts, we tend to latch onto things like visible changes in technology, and right now everyone’s tool of choice is generative AI. It’s real. It’s a ‘thing’. It’s all around us. We can’t feel stupid for focusing on it.
But however potential-rich the new wave of AI might be, is it really the be-all and end-all for every Annual Plan? Simeon Duckworth, Economist and LookUP Expert, puts this really well in our interview.
“It's hard to think of anything in our lifetimes that’s been as big as AI. But for lots of companies making products, I would think in the near term, it's not going to be as big an impact on their bottom line as other things, like maybe the cost of living. And that comes back to people really being able to get a handle on the mechanisms. The problem with thinking about the future is the sort of panic and ‘fear of missing out’ idea. And so we feel we need to get busy, and just get onto it.”
Simeon Duckworth, Economist and LookUP Expert
If you run a content factory, production technology is a fundamental mechanism of your business, and generative AI is deep in there. If you import coffee, maybe for the moment, generative AI is just a productivity hack.
By focusing on the fundamental mechanisms that shape your future, you are able to focus your energy on deep change in those areas.
These should be the things you know best, and that the people around you understand best. They should be the areas where you can describe, with texture and detail, how change will happen. And they are the areas where you should be able to quantify progress, through effective forecasting.
One of the biggest ever studies of forecasting success was the Good Judgement Project, led by Philip Tetlock and fully explained in Superforecasting. It conducted controlled experiments with ‘expert’ predictors of the future, and came up with the eye-catching finding that on average they were no better at forecasting the future than dart-throwing chimps.
But they also found a group of Superforecasters, who were at least 20-40% better than average at making quite precise guesses on really important topics. And what recurs again is this ability to focus on core mechanisms of change. The best forecasters were Sceptical Optimists: who avoided ideological assumptions about what was going to happen, or social pressure, and focused on understanding the core mechanisms, and the deep change they might create.
Where’s the Future, Now?
Even if you define a brilliantly clear vision of the future you want and the changes involved, it will still never feel as real as what’s happening right now.
The good news is that somewhere around you, someone is already living some version of that future. That means you have the opportunity to talk to them about it, to understand their stories, immerse in their case studies, and to get a glimpse of what that future feels like.
Back to Kian again, on how his business The People works with diverse global changemakers to imagine different visions of the future - which they may already be experiencing.
“I work with a lot of amazing young changemakers, from all around the world. From an attitude and behaviour perspective, a lot of the things they're doing at the moment, are going to be future patterns for other people. They're not what I would call like, mainstream audiences. They're people on the peripheries of society, doing cool things. But also in a weird way, they don't have much as much to lose. Because when you're in the centre, you have more to lose.”
To help people understand what the future will feel like, you also need to get close to the people for whom change is going to be disruptive, or hard. For some, the Future you want is all upside, but others in your community or your organisation may have something at risk.
That can’t be a reason to back off essential change, but it is crucial knowledge to help you describe what change will feel like, and what will happen as a consequence.
Mel McVeigh, a Chief Product Officer and LookUP Expert with deep expertise in driving product innovation, talked to us about the importance of staying close.
"It’s about constantly keeping your eyes and ears to the ground, and being really clear about what’s going on, and what maturity the business is ready for to take on those new technologies…all companies have stories, or companies have gossip, and you know, the health of your organisation based on what's being talked about, across the organisation. And if people believe they will tell your story for you. And if they don't, if even just little side chats, will, you know, will create tension will create unease or create conflict, it'll just slow you down. I feel that in some organisations, they really miss how crucial that part is.”
Staying close to the people at the edge of the future, internally and externally, should be a constant practice, not an annual process. But if you feel you’ve become detached, this is one of the best ways to reset your thinking.
The Future will never feel as real as the right now, but if you want to make Annual Planning a Big Reset, you have to do everything you can to make it feel as real as possible, to yourself, and to others around you.
That means being imaginative about the Future you want to make, clear-eyed and specific about the deep change that it might entail (and what will stay the same), and giving enough real-life texture to help people understand what that change will feel like, and what will happen when you get there.
The first Step is to build a Vision. It’s the anchor that you, your partners and your colleagues can use to think future-back, not today-forwards.
Our Big Reset Framework (for paid subscribers) will guide you through that process, and we’ll give additional inspiration in our monthly LookUP Live session.
We all know that feeling of anxiety that hangs in the air during early planning, that expresses itself in the silent question: ‘so what are we going to DO?’.
We’ve now got a big vision. And we want to start doing lots of little things.
There’s some great inspiration on this in How Big Things Get Done, a brilliant survey of the lessons learnt from some successful mega-projects, from Pixar movies, to terminal buildings, to space exploration, to home renovation projects. Big Things Get Done demonstrates the costs of a bias to action; from corporate disasters (infrastructure projects running up over-spends in the billions) to domestic crisis (kitchen refits that spiral into fundamental re-evaluation of life goals).
What all of these failed projects have in common is an ever-expanding ‘ window of doom’ – which is that painful corridor between the completion of the planning, and when you actually start experiencing the fruits of your labours. This is the moment where 90%+ of change projects fall over.
Before we get doing, it’s essential to get thinking about what it will take to succeed.
We aren’t looking for actions. We are looking for levers.
Levers are the big, absolutely crucial jobs that need to be done, that will combine to push your Plan forwards.
If you only ever read one book on strategy (and we don’t think you should ever put all your eggs in one basket) it would probably be Good Strategy, Bad Strategy. There’s a particularly incisive passage where Richard Rumelt digs deep into the success of businesses like Apple and Walmart. He gets deep into the importance of coherent actions, and what he describes as ‘Chain-link systems’ - co-ordinated ways of doing things which are only as strong as their weakest link, but hold incredible power.
“The core of strategy work is always the same: discovering the critical factors in a situation and designing a way of coordinating and focusing actions to deal with those factors.”
Richard Rumelt, in Good Strategy / Bad Strategy
Levers co-ordinate and focus your actions. How do you know a lever when you see one?
your vision can’t come to life without it
it’s a defence against your most likely failures
it’s relevant in all potential scenarios, but potentially heroic in some
it’s distinct from your other levers, but connected
It’s essential to be ambitious and positive about the levers you can build, but it’s important to be realistic too.
There’s no point thinking only about the opportunities now, and only stumbling across the costs and the risks of failure later. Your levers exist to help you reduce the chances of failure, and to prepare you for the multiple different scenarios that could easily materialise in the course of the next year.
They require realism, and the ability to make tough choices early.
Simeon, our economist and LookUP Expert, puts this brilliantly here, in his reflections on the crucial ingredients of good Planning sessions.
Before you go off and do things, or get people to work on pieces of the Plan, you need to have prioritised your key Levers, and think properly about how they connect.
Your Levers, and the model that connects them, will be a crucial Step to keep you out of the tactical weeds and focused on the future.
If you want the full how-to guide to building your Levers, look out for our Big Reset Framework, and our monthly LookUP Live session.
Sometimes, the best-made Plans start to unravel the moment they hit reality.
And that’s not that surprising, give what we know about human nature.
As human beings, we like to have freedom - a Plan is designed to constrict.
We like to take things one step at a time - a Plan asks us to see it all.
If you want to make your Annual Planning a Big Reset, you need to build momentum into your Plan by getting people involved in thinking about what’s next, and where to start.
The first few conversations you have with partners and colleagues should make your Plan bigger and better. And as Kian described here, sometimes that involves being a bit more open, a bit more rough and ready, than might feel entirely comfortable…
We also need to recognise that the Plan isn’t the end of the Planning - and that Big Resets often start with small actions:
the efforts we make to learn, to fill knowledge gaps
the little tests we do to prove our some of our hypotheses
the things we decide to cross out on our BAU to-do list
the people we choose to involve in extending our thinking
Plans also need to be nurtured, and have sponsors and mentors. A really useful way of thinking about this is the ‘Personal Board of Directors’ – a group of people who co-sponsor the plan, and the person creating it.
The process of getting started, and the process of getting down to execute a Plan, are not the same thing. And if you want a Big Reset, you’ve got to start on the right foot.
When we work with you on a Big Reset, we help you find the right Start Points. This involves some (often-forgotten) exercises that will push things forward.
Our Big Reset Framework (for paid subscribers) and LookUP Live session will guide you through that process.
What’s Next?
We’ve shown you three big problems, and hinted at three useful tools to help you.
These are Vision, Levers, and Start-points: the three key ingredients of our Big Reset Manifesto Framework.
This is what the Framework looks like…
But if you’d like to dig deeper and get access to a walk through of the framework and access to a LookUP Live workshop to help you work through it, you can do that here…
We’ll also be bringing you:
Full-length interviews with Lianre, Kian, Simeon and Mel
Our LookUP List of valuable resources
Details on how LookUP Sessions can support your Annual Planning process
Whatever your discipline, and whatever the year ahead that you want to plan with, these tools will help you to get ahead of change, and make the future you want.
Until then - happy planning!
Thanks so much for reading.
If you need help turning your Annual Planning into a Big Reset, contact matthew@wearelookup.com or caroline@wearelookup.com
And to keep staying ahead of change, join our Community today!