During my studies, my economics teacher at the Uni de Fribourg taught me that if I wanted to “succeed” in life, I had to learn to plan, and ideally, plan everything.
Since then, I’ve been reading about the merits of plans, discovering apps that help you plan: finances, projects, career, people to see, menus at home, shopping list, in short, everything.
The more you plan, the more you win the admiration of your bosses and cicada friends.
So it’s out of the question to move forward without planning, especially in an uncertain context, because not planning is too dan-ge-reux! And for some people, not planning ahead is scary and insecure.
Except that, in real life (what an expression), you don’t get more done by planning everything.
The myth of absolute control
Who hasn’t experienced the pressure of presenting an (almost) perfect plan? In my case, it was marketing strategy and tactics. Teams would present numbers and tags on an Excel sheet (in cross-pivot), with impact forecasts and ROI. The more accurate their forecasts, the more credible it was. We had the impression of having chewed through reality. Financial controlling was supportive.
But reality is wilder and messier than our spreadsheets.
Projects go off the rails*. Priorities change. It’s common knowledge in business schools that 80% of projects fail. There are many reasons for this, some of which seem avoidable if you put your mind to it. But many other causes are surprises: floods, sudden rises in the price of raw materials and customs duties, port blockades, etc.
So, is there another way to move forward in this complex, uncertain and changing world without spending so much time on the plan?
Yes, and it begins with a reversal of perspective: stop trying to control everything and learn to dialogue – to dance with the unknown.
Slow down to create better: Theory U
It’s counter-intuitive. In a culture that values planning, speed and reactivity, Otto Scharmer‘s Theory U proposes something different: slow down to listen better.
Scharmer speaks of “presencing”, a posture where we suspend automatisms, where we listen deeply to others, to the context, to ourselves, to let emerge what is ready to be born. We plunge into the depths of the U, only to rise again with a creative act that is not the result of our will alone, but of a deep connection to reality.
It’s not passive letting go. Theory U advocates a discipline of attention that requires courage and humility. I’ve seen leaders transform their posture by accepting that they don’t have all the answers, by creating space for collective intelligence to surface. This is where real innovation is born. Theory U is the art of stepping out of reaction into creation.
Want an example? One of my customers specializes in renovating old buildings. While she’s working on a project, an unexpected death brings everything to a halt. The heirs are fighting over who gets the house. They have to come to an agreement, because the house needs renovation and maintenance. Caught in the middle, my client saw an opportunity: to help them concretely understand the pluses and minuses, and take action on the legal real estate front. She had NEVER thought of this before. She sensed and invented something that was emerging. Today, dispute resolution is part of her business.
Growing with chaos: anti-fragility
Speaking of chaos and the unknown, Nassim Nicholas Taleb goes further than Theory U. For him, certain systems and people benefit (in the sense of feeding) from disorder and the unknown. They’re not just resilient, they’re ANTI-FRAGILE.
They have developed the ability to grow stronger after a shock, to transform, to learn and to develop. Not because of uncertainty, but because of it (see my article here).
I’m sure you’ve had those moments: a project falls apart, a certainty falls away, something unexpected happens… It’s a mess. And yet, something reveals itself. A new resource, an unexpected idea, a life-saving readjustment. If you haven’t collapsed, maybe it’s because you’re already more anti-fragile than you think. Taleb reminds us that wanting to eliminate all risk makes us more vulnerable. By dint of smoothing, sanitizing and predicting everything, we lose the ability to improvise, bounce back and innovate.
Anti-fragility is a form of dynamic clairvoyance that enables us to integrate shocks as material for transformation, like dancing with a stranger…!
A pragmatic approach: effectuation
To explore and undertake, we can’t rely on a GPS to lead us down known paths. This is the idea at the heart of effectuation, a theory developed by Saras Sarasvathy after studying seasoned entrepreneurs.
Surprise: most of them don’t follow rigid plans. They move forward with what they have, building along the way, adapting in real time. Don’t think about what’s missing and what’s still needed … (this concept still helps me a lot today in my various activities😁).
The five principles she has identified, if not recipes, are at least precepts for action.
- Bird-in-hand: start with who you are, what you can do, and who you know. This comes from the English expression “a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush”.(a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush)
- Affordable loss: bet on what you’re prepared to lose, not on what you hope to gain. This idea prevents dopamine from taking flight (see my article on dopamine).
- Crazy quilt: form a patchwork of alliances with the people you meet, those who are ready to co-construct with you.
- Lemonade: turn surprises (even unpleasant ones) into resources. It comes from an expression that says: “when life gives you lemons (even sour ones)… make lemonade! (“when life gives you lemons, make lemonade”).
- Pilot-in-the-plane: you’re not a spectator of change. You’re an actor. You’re flying your plane, not anyone else.
Effectuation is therefore a philosophy of action, as opposed to a strategy of action planning. It’s a way of saying: I don’t know exactly where I’m going, but I’m starting, I’m moving forward, and I’m paying attention to the signals.
Conclusion: learning to walk in the fog
What all these approaches – Scharmer, Taleb, Sarasvathy – tell us is that uncertainty is not a problem to be solved, but a space to be inhabited. It’s quite an oriental idea. We leave the sequential world (Newton?) to enter the organic world where everything is linked to everything else.
In leadership, as in life, the desire to control everything exhausts us. Perfectionists beware! Conversely, learning to work with living things, listening to what emerges, transforming the unexpected into new paths, is, for me, rediscovering our power. Sober, connected, committed power.
So, tomorrow, rather than trying to secure your entire perimeter, how about daring to take a step into the fog? Where would you go?
References:
* The PMI study reveals that 48% of projects are considered successful, while 40% fall into a gray area – neither failure nor success – and 12% are outright failures.
Otto Scharmer, Theory U: Leading from the Future as It Emerges (MIT, 2007)
Nassim Nicholas Taleb, Antifragile: Things That Gain from Disorder (Random House, 2012)
Saras Sarasvathy, Effectuation: Elements of Entrepreneurial Expertise (2008)
This article is a drop in the ocean AND the ocean is made up of drops.
