Take a minute: look at your goals, look at your performance, see if your behaviour matches your goals.

<ol><li dir = "auto">One minute goal setting</li><li dir = "auto">One minute praising</li><li dir = "auto">One minute reprimand</li></ol> One minute does not mean an exact time but rather that it is easy and does not need to take up too much time.

3 Tools for effective management

The One Minute Manager makes it clear<ul><li dir = "auto">what the employee's responsibilities are,</li><li dir = "auto">what they're accountable for.</li></ul>Once understood, each goal is recorded on a single page. The goal and its performance standard should consist of one or two paragraphs that can be read in a minute. The employees should have access to assist with aligning themselves with their goals.

One minute goal setting

Employees know how they're doing when a manager clearly communicates this to them. When a manager sees you doing something right, he tells you exactly what you did right and shares how good he feels about what you did. The key is to act immediately and not wait for appraisals.&nbsp; This technique will help the employee to understand what specific behaviour is required. It will accelerate the learning process and improvements.

One minute praising

When a manager sees you making a mistake, the reprimand does not exceed a minute. The manager is specific about what you did wrong. He shares how he feels - frustrated or annoyed - and when the reprimand is over, it is over. The manager never attacks a persons value, only reprimands the behaviour. Acting quickly prevents disasters and encourages success.

One minute reprimand

Details a simple, yet effective management system based on three fundamental strategies for earning raises, promotions, and power in business

Stashed ideas

The One Minute Manager

In life, there's a pause between the incident and the response, where you have a chance to decide how you will behave in a difficult situation. We can call the space between stimulus and response "the Gap." It's what you do in the Gap that determines who you are and where you go.

The Gap 

Problem Solving

Gaps offer excellent opportunities to learn, especially when we don't have time to deliberate, when we're not our best, when we don't have any willpower. We may feel justified to behave in a way that the situation dictates. At that moment, we can choose to compose ourselves. We can do what Epictetus says: "Always conduct yourself as though you are at a formal dinner."

It's what you do in the gap

A few months ago, my wife and I were visiting the UK.

After arriving in Manchester, we checked into our hotel. But unbeknownst to me when I booked it, the hotel had a self-service check-in.

No reception; just a few employees on hand to help if needed.

I approached the check-in, typed in my booking number and… nothing.

I tried once more, carefully checking the number, character by character, but it made no difference.

“No reservation found. Please wait for assistance.”

Worn out after a long day of travel, I tried once more, only this time, typed my number in lowercase.

(Hey, got to try everything, right?)

At this point, I could feel my patience slipping and several expectations slowly creeping in…

<ul><li>“There ought to be a reception like other hotels.” </li><li>“An employee could have helped me by now.” </li><li>“Checking in should be easier.” </li> </ul>

After a few minutes, a hotel employee noticed my challenge and approached to help.

“Are you alright there, sir?”

And that’s when it hit me…

In life, there’s a space between stimulus and response, a moment of stark awareness where you have a chance to decide how you will behave in a given situation.

I call it the “Gap.”

(If you’ve read <a dir="ltr" href="https://www.samuelthomasdavies.com/book-summaries/self-help/the-7-habits-of-highly-effective-people/">The 7 Habits of Highly-Effective People </a>, you will recognize the above image as “The Proactive Model.” The Gap is otherwise known as our “Freedom to Choose.”)

The Gap isn’t always easy to recognize. I’ll grant that. But when it is… it carries with it a seed of opportunity, a chance to grow, to become more than you think you’re capable of.

I believe, in life, it’s what you do in the Gap that determines who you become and where you go.

The duration of the Gap varies from one situation to another. It might last mere milliseconds the moment following an altercation with a driver cutting you off. By contrast, it might linger for hours, even days, after receiving a snarky email from a work colleague.

While tempting to believe otherwise, the Gap’s duration isn’t always an advantage. After all, the longer you have to deliberate how to behave, the easier it is to handicap yourself due to the possibility of analysis paralysis.

In reality, the Gaps that offer the greatest opportunity to learn, are the ones where you don’t have time to deliberate, when you don’t have any willpower to rely on, when you’re NOT your best, when you feel justified to behave a way the situation often dictates, when it’s actually expected of you.

With Each Gap Comes an Unexpected Outcome

In my Gap, I could have expressed annoyance. I might have even been justified to behave as such. But knowing the above, I chose to compose myself.

As brief as my Gap was, I reminded myself of <a dir="ltr" href="https://www.samuelthomasdavies.com/book-summaries/philosophy/the-good-life-handbook/">one of my favorite Epictetus quotes </a>:

“Always conduct yourself as though you are at a formal dinner.”

I reminded myself where I was and the company I was in and replied:

“I’m having trouble checking in,” I confessed, embarrassingly. “It’s been a long day. Can you help me?”

“Of course,” she smiled.

The employee tried herself and again, surprisingly, couldn’t check-in either.

I breathed a sigh of relief knowing it wasn’t just me.

“Leave it with me,” she said, before walking off.

I watched her walk off into another room, before filling my wife in on what was happening and why we hadn’t checked in yet.

A few moments later, the employee returned, bearing good news…

“Okay, I’ve taken care of that for you. You’re all checked in now. I’ve also upgraded you to one of our Executive Suite. Oh, and you can take anything you want from the minibar—free of charge. Apologies again for the inconvenience.”

I thanked her for her hospitality. As my wife and I rode the elevator to the top floor, I couldn’t help but smile knowingly.

It’s what you do in the Gap.

Get practical, science-based ideas for living a good life delivered straight to your inbox once a month.

The Gap: The Surprising Truth About Freedom of Choice

Research reveals that how people feel while waiting is more important than how long they wait. 
Everyone stands in line in the physical world. It is a way to deal with high demand. Online lines serve the same purpose, given the technical challenges of peak website traffic. By understanding queue psychology, you can ensure a positive experience for your customers.

A positive queuing experience

In the 1950s New York City, the problem was waiting in line for the elevators of the city&#39;s new skyscrapers. But building managers soon realised the problem wasn&#39;t the waiting time - it was the perceived waiting time.
The solution was to add floor indicators showing people the elevator&#39;s progress and adding floor-to-ceiling mirrors near the elevators to distract and occupy people. Similar solutions are found in airports, doctor&#39;s waiting rooms and supermarkets.

Queuing: The perceived waiting time is the culprit

<ol>
<li>Unoccupied time feels longer than occupied time. Find creative ways to engage your customers.</li>
<li>People want to get started. Ensure that your customer feels like they&#39;ve started. E.g. add a progress bar on the online queuing page.</li>
<li>Uncertain waits feel longer. Give an estimated waiting time. Err on the side of overestimation.</li>
<li>Unexplained waits feel longer. Provide clear explanations.</li>
<li>Unfair waits are longer. Treat customers on a first-in, first-out basis.</li>
<li>Anything that can cause anxiety makes waits feel longer. Keep a fair, one line queue to prevent repeated anxiety about choosing the &quot;right line&quot;.</li>
</ol>

Six queuing principles

Understanding queuing psychology is crucial to giving customers a positive user experience. Discover 6 revealing rules of queuing experiences [+ INFOGRAPHIC].

The Psychology of Queuing Revealed in 6 Simple Rules

&quot;If you set your bar at amazing, it’s awfully difficult to start.&quot;

Quote

Self Improvement

Learning from others is great. But comparing your current situation to someone who is already successful can often make you feel like you lack the required resources to get started at all.

Learning Vs Comparing

Great gear can make your life much easier on the road, but it’s not required.
You don’t need new cooking bowls to start eating healthy. And you don’t need a new backpack to start traveling.

What Is Optimal Vs What Is Needed

Claiming that you need to learn more or to get more organized can often be an excuse that prevents you from moving forward on the stuff that actually matters.

Avoiding By Optimizing

When you have a goal - whether it's starting a business or eating healthier or traveling the world - it's easy to look at someone who is already doing it and then try to reverse engineer their strategy. In some cases, this is really useful.

When you have a goal - whether it's starting a business or eating healthier or traveling the world - it's easy to look at someone who is already doing it and then try to reverse engineer their strategy. In some cases, this is really useful. Learning from the experiences of successful people is a great way to accelerate your own learning curve. But it's equally important to remember that the systems, habits, and strategies that successful people are using today are probably not the same ones they were using when they began their journey.

What is optimal for them right now isn't necessarily needed for you to get started. There is a difference between the two. Let me explain. If you set your bar at "amazing," it's awfully difficult to start. -Seth Godin Learning from others is great and I do it all the time myself. But comparing your current situation to someone who is already successful can often make you feel like you lack the required resources to get started at all. If you look at their optimal setup, it can be really easy to convince yourself that you need to buy new things or learn new skills or meet new people before you can even take the first step toward your goals.

And usually, that's not true. Here are some examples. Traveling the world. Every time I travel, I see so many backpackers who have spent a fortune on gear: rainproof bags, moisture-wicking clothes, special shoes. Now I'm not saying gear is useless. <a href="https://jamesclear.com/ultralight-travel">Great gear </a>can make your life much easier on the road, but it's not required. You don't need new shoes to start running. You don't need new cooking bowls to start <a href="https://jamesclear.com/eat-healthy">eating healthy </a>. And you don't need a new backpack to start traveling. Those things might be optimal, but they are not needed in the beginning.

Starting a business. When you're an entrepreneur, it's so easy to get obsessed with optimal. This is especially true at the start. I can remember being convinced that my first website would not succeed without a great logo. After all, every popular website I looked at had a professional logo. I've since learned my lesson. Now my "logo" is just my name and this is the most popular website I've built.

Eating healthy. Maybe the optimal diet would involve buying beef that is only grass-fed or vegetables that are only organic or some other super-healthy food strategy. But if you're just trying to make strides in the right direction, why get bogged down in the details? Start small and simply buy another vegetable this week - whether it's organic or not. There will be plenty of time for optimization later.

Claiming that you need to "learn more" or "get all of your ducks in a row" <a href="https://jamesclear.com/taking-action">can often be a crutch </a>that prevents you from moving forward on the stuff that actually matters. <ul><li>You can complain that your golf game is suffering because you need new clubs, but the truth is you probably just need two years of practice. </li><li>You can argue that it's hard to travel light without the right backpack, but the truth is you could make it work with what you have now. </li><li>You can point out how your business mentor is successful because they use XYZ software, but they probably got started without it. </li> </ul>

Obsessing about the ultimate strategy or the ultimate diet or the ultimate golf club can be a clever way to prevent yourself from doing hard work. As regular readers know, I'm all for optimizing and improvement. <a href="https://jamesclear.com/marginal-gains">One percent gains </a>fill me with joy. <a href="https://jamesclear.com/identity-based-habits">Small habits </a>leave me smitten. <a href="https://jamesclear.com/mental-toughness-marathon-monks">Disturbing levels of consistency </a>make my heart flutter. But don't let visions of what is optimal prevent you from getting started in the first place.

The Power of Imperfect Starts

Our brains must make sense of the confusing world around us by processing a never-ending stream of information. Ideally, our brains would analyze everything thoroughly. However, they cannot, because it is too impractical.
<ul>
<li>Thinking takes time, and our decisions must often be fast. You must immediately know to cross a road quickly, when you hear a car rapidly approaching.</li>
<li>Thinking also uses energy and our brains have only a limited supply. Analyzing everything would quickly deplete our energy stores. These limitations represent a thinking problem: Our brains simply do not have enough resources to understand the world without taking some mental shortcuts.</li>
</ul>

The thinking problem

We experience and interpret the world around us based on what we already know, even though sometimes what we know is flawed. Our brains find shortcuts to overcome the thinking problem by relying on thoughts already stored in our minds, called schemas. Schemas do the processing for the brain, like auto-fill, but for thinking.
Using schemas is more efficient than analyzing every aspect of every moment. They allow our brains to process more information with less effort, saving brain power for other important thinking and problem-solving.

Our smart, lazy brains

<ul>
<li>Schemas are the building blocks of our knowledge about the world. Our brains rely on different types of schemas to understand different types of situations.</li>
<li>Schemas are like books in your mind telling you what different objects are and what they do. A bird schema, for example, might say that birds are “small animals,” “have wings” and “can fly.” Together, all the objects you know form a collection of books that fill the shelves of a library in your mind.</li>
<li>Our brains trust what these books or schemas tell us when we try to understand objects in our environment. </li>
</ul>

Our brains as libraries

Whether our judgments are accurate depends on the schemas or books available in our mental libraries.
When our brains try to understand unfamiliar objects, they must rely on a schema for a different but similar object because the correct schema is unavailable. If the object and chosen schema closely match, our brains effortlessly – but inaccurately – assume the two objects are the same.

Why we see things differently

Where we would be without our brains? But think about it. How do they work?

<a dir="ltr" href="https://theconversation.com/us/topics/curious-kids-us-74795">Curious Kids </a>is a series for children of all ages. If you have a question you’d like an expert to answer, send it to <a dir="ltr" href="mailto:curiouskidsus@theconversation.com">curiouskidsus@theconversation.com </a>.

How does your brain understand things? - Shubhra S., age 8

A roaring sound fills the air and a <a dir="ltr" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jsCjxTXQU7g">small object </a>zips through the sky. People in a crowd look up, and three voices shout, “Look! Up in the sky! It’s a bird!” “It’s a plane!” “It’s Superman!”

It’s the same object, the same sky. It’s even the same roar. So why do three people witnessing the same event reach different conclusions?

The answer to this question lies in how our brains are hardwired to think. We experience and interpret the world around us based on what we already know, even though sometimes what we know is flawed.

The world is a confusing and busy place. Our brains must make sense of it by processing a never-ending stream of information. Ideally – because it would be most accurate – our brains would analyze everything thoroughly. However, they cannot, because it is too impractical.

Thinking takes time, and our decisions must often be fast. You must immediately know to cross a road quickly – even run – when you hear a car rapidly approaching.

Thinking also uses energy – or brain power – and our brains have only a limited supply. Analyzing everything would quickly deplete our energy stores.

These limitations represent a thinking problem: Our brains simply do not have enough resources to understand the world without taking some mental shortcuts.

Our brains find shortcuts to overcome the thinking problem by relying on thoughts already stored in our minds, called schemas. Schemas do the processing for the brain, like auto-fill, but for thinking.

Using schemas is more efficient than analyzing every aspect of every moment. They allow our brains to process more information with less effort, saving brain power for other important thinking and problem-solving.

Schemas are the building blocks of our knowledge about the world. Our brains rely on <a dir="ltr" href="https://www.thoughtco.com/schema-definition-4691768#:%7E:text=There%20are%20many%20types%20of,as%20we%20gain%20more%20information">different types of schemas </a>to understand different types of situations.

Schemas are like books in your mind telling you what different objects are and what they do. A bird schema, for example, might say that birds are “small animals,” “have wings” and “can fly.” Together, all the objects you know form a collection of books that fill the shelves of a library in your mind.

Our brains trust what these books or schemas tell us when we try to understand objects in our environment. Doing so is much quicker and easier than analyzing their features anew, and the conclusion is usually – but not always – the same.

Whether our judgments are accurate depends on the schemas or books available in our mental libraries.

When our brains try to understand unfamiliar objects, they must rely on a schema for a different but similar object because the correct schema is unavailable. If the object and chosen schema closely match, our brains effortlessly – but inaccurately – assume the two objects are the same.

A person who has never seen a bat might assume a bat is a bird because the features of the bat and their schema for a bird are similar: Both are small animals with wings and can fly. Our brains accept occasional inaccuracies.

For the two people who thought Superman was a bird or a plane, neither had seen Superman before, so neither had a Superman schema available to rely on. Their brains effortlessly chose schemas for a bird and plane instead because those schemas were the closest match to the object in the sky.

Their brains made quick assumptions based on imperfect knowledge. The human brain “thought” it saw one thing but, in the interest of thinking quickly and efficiently, it made a mistake. There is no harm in thinking Superman is a bird or a plane, even though he is not. It only takes one encounter with Superman to create a new schema and change your thinking forever.

Hello, curious kids! Do you have a question you’d like an expert to answer? Ask an adult to send your question to <a dir="ltr" href="mailto:curiouskidsus@theconversation.com">CuriousKidsUS@theconversation.com </a>. Please tell us your name, age and the city where you live.

And since curiosity has no age limit – adults, let us know what you’re wondering, too. We won’t be able to answer every question, but we will do our best.

Your brain thinks – but how?

The tools of probing the future (strategic forecasting) include microscopic as well as macroscopic components.
Geopolitical forecasting is the study of alternate futures, taking signals from the noise of today’s stories, developments and decisions.

The Crystal Ball: Probing The Future

While providing a set of scenarios, four is a good number to showcase a rich set of plausible futures. 
<ul>
<li>They should ideally have the details of the likelihood or probability of the success or failure and be customized to fit the context.</li>
<li>Events of the past are generally unreliable indicators of the future due to a drastic change in the environment. </li>
<li>The scenarios listed should serve a purpose which is a low signal at present but has the potential to turn into a much higher signal in the future.</li>
<li>Any given field will have its own set of unique scenarios.</li>
</ul>

The Good Scenarios

It has two parts, with the first five steps, concentrating on which particular scenarios to work on, and the rest three steps towards the story, implications and indicators.
<ol>
<li>Focal Issue: identify what to focus on.</li>
<li>Key Factors: brainstorm about the various factors influencing the focal issue. There can be numerous obvious factors and further digging can discover the less obvious, hidden ones.</li>
<li>External Forces: there are always certain remote, unseen forces that operate on the focal issue, and can be geopolitical, economic, social or technological. This may result in 70 to 80 key factors/external forces.</li>
<li>Critical Uncertainties: by combining all forms of key factors by implementing a divergent process, the next step is to converge by allocating priority votes to the importance of each factor and the degree of uncertainty.</li>
<li>Scenario Logics: a decision is taken on which potential futures out of the curated list are to be developed into a detailed scenario.</li>
<li>Scenarios: the eligible (top trending) scenarios are then turned into a story by a single author.</li>
<li>Implications and Options: fact check and stress-test each of the scenarios is set up after a few weeks. </li>
<li>Early Indicators can be easily found in consumer behaviour or stock price fluctuation.</li>
</ol>

Scenario Planning: The Eight-Step Process

A strategy is always developed with a set of scenarios studied and selected. It requires common sense as well as experience.
Example: A strategy can be an aeroplane, and the scenarios can be the conditions under which it can fly, or which it can crash.

Strategy Vs Scenario

By Jay Ogilvy Strategic foresight can be gained through more than one lens. Beyond the microscope of simple budgeting and the macroscope of geopolitics lie still other tools for probing the future. As I settle into the role of contributor to this space, I want to explore multiple futures and multiple perspectives. [...]

Strategic foresight can be gained through more than one lens. Beyond the microscope of simple budgeting and the <a aria-label="macroscope of geopolitics" data-ga-track="ExternalLink:http://www.stratfor.com/about/methodology" dir="ltr" href="http://www.stratfor.com/about/methodology" rel="nofollow noopener">macroscope of geopolitics </a>lie still other tools for probing the future. As I settle into the role of contributor to this space, I want to explore multiple futures and multiple perspectives. Since my approach to looking ahead differs from what some Stratfor readers may be familiar with, I want to start by explaining one of my favorite methodologies, which is distinct from — but interestingly related to — geopolitical forecasting.

My specialty is multiple scenarios, or scenario planning, as it is best known. Scenarios are alternate futures in which today's decisions may play out. They are stories with beginnings, middles and ends. Good scenarios have twists and turns that show how the environment might change over time.

Good Scenarios <ul><li><h3 data-ga-track="SEO Recirc Unit: 6">Finally: $1,200 Second Stimulus Check And Reduced Unemployment Benefits Proposed In HEALS Act Package </h3> </li> </ul>A good set of scenarios will contain two to five different narratives. More than five scenarios tend to get confused with one another. Three scenarios run the danger that people will try to pick the most moderate or most apparently plausible and forget about the other two. Four is a good number — neither too many nor too few.

Each scenario should contain enough detail to assess the likelihood of success or failure of different strategic options. Will there be sufficient demand for a new product? Are supply chains likely to remain intact? How much competition can we anticipate? Have new technologies rendered a product obsolete? Will political instability put those oil fields beyond our reach?

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PROMOTED A good set of scenarios should always be customized to a particular context. The scenarios that Royal Dutch/Shell used to anticipate the drop in oil prices in 1986 were far different from the scenarios a major computer manufacturer used to navigate its transition from products to services. The scenarios Xerox used to anticipate the convergence of the copier and printer were far different from the scenarios American Express used to deal with the replacement of traveler's checks by credit cards. Each organization needs its own scenarios to face its own challenges.

Purpose is also important. Sometimes the point of a scenario is to pry attention away from the ordinary. The very process of thinking about a range of possible futures can be a useful opportunity for addressing issues that might otherwise be neglected. Think about the <a aria-label="rising power of China" data-ga-track="ExternalLink:http://www.stratfor.com/analysis/geopolitics-china-great-power-enclosed" dir="ltr" href="http://www.stratfor.com/analysis/geopolitics-china-great-power-enclosed" rel="nofollow noopener">rising power of China </a>and <a aria-label="India" data-ga-track="ExternalLink:http://www.stratfor.com/analysis/geopolitics-india-shifting-self-contained-world" dir="ltr" href="http://www.stratfor.com/analysis/geopolitics-india-shifting-self-contained-world" rel="nofollow noopener">India </a>or the <a aria-label="creeping onset of climate change" data-ga-track="ExternalLink:http://www.stratfor.com/geopolitical-diary/climate-change-shifting-debate-geopolitics" dir="ltr" href="http://www.stratfor.com/geopolitical-diary/climate-change-shifting-debate-geopolitics" rel="nofollow noopener">creeping onset of climate change </a>.

Each industry will have its own examples: for education, the spread of massive online open courses; for energy, new technologies for decarbonization or extraction; for entertainment, oscillating paradigms between big screen blockbusters and fare that fits on mobile screens. Alternate scenarios can serve as relatively low-cost insurance policies. You are less likely to be blindsided if you've taken the trouble to imagine some unwelcomed surprises. And on the upside, scenarios can identify white-space opportunities that remain unfilled until a first mover occupies the space that less imaginative competitors never knew existed.

The Process The scenario planning process usually unfolds according to an orderly, methodical eight-step process. The process has two major parts: first, choosing which scenario logics to flesh out, a task that comprises the first five steps, and second, telling the actual story, its implications and early indicators, which comprise the remaining steps. A full-blown scenario planning project usually takes three or four months, starting with interviews and an initial workshop, then at least a month of research and writing, then a second workshop to draw implications from the ramified and refined scenarios, and then some time to summarize the results of the second workshop into a presentation.

Step 1: Focal Issue The process begins with identifying what a person or organization will focus on. Scenarios for the future of the galaxy will not be useful to a company trying to decide whether it should build a new factory outside Sao Paulo. Sometimes the focal issue is a very specific question: Should we invest in technology X? Should we buy company Y? Sometimes the focal issue is more open-ended: Are there potential surprises that could disrupt our current strategy? And other times the focal issue is geopolitical: What will the future of country Z look like as a market for our several different product lines?

Step 2: Key Factors Once the focal issue has been determined, a scenario team will brainstorm a long list of factors that could affect the focal issue. Many of the key factors will be fairly obvious. They are the sorts of things that would be addressed in a typical business plan: customer demand, suppliers, competitors, production technologies, human resources, etc. Once the team has listed 30 or 40 different key factors, though, the process will reach out to less obvious possibilities: What if there is a new entrant on the competitive landscape? What if there is a new disruptive technology?

Step 3: External Forces After identifying key factors, it's time to consider the more remote forces operating in the larger world, e.g., geopolitical, economic, social and technological forces that are often left out of the usual business plan. Strategic plans that disregard such forces — war is an obvious example — often fail. The kind of geopolitical analysis that Stratfor offers can play a major role here. But a good set of scenarios will also offer insight into less obvious dynamics such as migration patterns, cultural differences, new technologies, currency fluctuations, environmental issues, and/or epidemics.

In addition to potential risks, it's essential to look on the upside. Opportunities, breakthroughs and new technologies are difficult to anticipate. But it's important to exercise imagination in disciplined ways that do more than gaze at the world through rose-tinted glasses. Human ingenuity should not be discounted, however difficult it may be to anticipate.

As with key factors, there is no proof for having thought of all possible external forces. This work calls for imagination and creativity. Once a scenario team has generated a list of 70 to 80 key factors and external forces, the effort to come up with still more will get harder. All of the obvious factors and forces will have been mentioned. It is necessary to push imaginative thinking to the limit, but not too far beyond the limit. Some outlandish ideas are welcomed, but when people start talking about green men from Mars, you know it's time to move on.

Step 4: Critical Uncertainties By following a methodical, step-by-step process, the scenario team can achieve a balance between the kind of wild creativity and free-form imagination called for during the brainstorming in steps two and three and good judgment based on knowledge and experience. Where steps two and three featured a divergent process in which the team tries to think of everything that could affect the focal issue, step four calls for a convergent process of prioritization.

The criteria to be used in allocating priority votes are importance to the focal issue and degree of uncertainty. When all the votes are counted and closely related items clustered together, there will be a short list of critical uncertainties. For example, will energy prices rise or fall? Will consumer values tip toward the more traditional or the more self-expressive? Will a technology advance rapidly or slowly? Will the government lean toward deregulation or reregulation?

Step 5: Scenario Logics But how do we decide which futures are worth developing as detailed scenarios? This is the challenge of step five, how to narrow down from the virtually infinite number of possible futures to settle on just two to five that will lead to strategic insight. After all the priority votes on critical uncertainties have been counted, the group fixes on just two critical uncertainties to serve as the axes of a 2-by-2 matrix. Four scenario logics are then generated from the labels on the ends of the two axes.

This set of scenarios, developed for one of the Detroit Three automakers way back in 1984, contained "the official future" in the lower left quadrant: low-priced fuel with neo-traditional consumer values. This was the kind of future Detroit had been planning on for many decades. But higher fuel prices and changing consumer values required them to think of new kinds of vehicles that would be appropriate for different environments. As a result, the client started thinking harder about smaller cars, as well as the minivans and SUVs that would appeal to consumers with non-traditional values.

I like this case study just because it offers such a good example of an "official future." Geopolitical forecasts can help to formulate the official future. Scenario planning can then supplement the base case forecast with other scenarios that will further illuminate the base case. Their logics have been chosen based on the scenario team's collective judgment regarding what is most important to the focal issue. It pays to question the most important assumptions. What if we're wrong? Scenario planning guards against the dangers of placing all of the organization's eggs into the basket of just one forecast, however well founded that forecast may be.

Step 6: Scenarios The second major task of scenario planning — actually telling the story of each chosen scenario — calls for very different talents and skills. A good scenario is very much a story, but most stories are written by a single author, not by a committee. How can a scenario team combine the creativity of many individuals into just one clear narrative line?

As a matter of tradecraft, a good method for eliciting specific plot elements is to encourage workshop participants to write newspaper headlines on post-it notes. A harvest of such post-it notes will supply plenty of content for the scenario narrative. This process can be started in a workshop setting, but once the members of the scenario team have generated dozens of plot elements and newspaper headlines, it can take several weeks, even months, for a small core team to draft narrative scenarios from the outlines generated in the workshop.

Step 7: Implications and Options Usually a month to two after the first workshop, a second workshop will be held to figure out the implications of each scenario and the strategic options appropriate to those implications. Take one scenario and use it as the playing field on which our plays must be planned. Play out each scenario to its conclusion. Then stand back and look at the lists of strategic options appropriate to each scenario. Pull out those that show up on all or most lists. These are the "no brainers," the strategic options that look good in any and all scenarios. Start work on them immediately.

The options that look good in every scenario are often associated with what are called pre-determined elements — aspects of the future that can be reliably predicted. And here is the realm where Stratfor's geopolitical analysis aligns most closely with scenario planning. Whatever can be predicted should be predicted. For the unpredictable remainder, the critical uncertainties, scenarios will capture the alternatives in coherent bundles.

Demography is one of the most reliable sources of pre-determined elements. And note how significantly <a aria-label="demographics play in Stratfor's forecasts" data-ga-track="ExternalLink:http://www.stratfor.com/analysis/europes-shrinking-aging-population" dir="ltr" href="http://www.stratfor.com/analysis/europes-shrinking-aging-population" rel="nofollow noopener">demographics play in Stratfor's forecasts </a>for, say, Russia, where the population is declining, or Japan, the world's front-runner in aging population. Step 8: Early Indicators Early indicators are the first signs of the big changes that differentiate one scenario from another. Sometimes early indicators are found in the behavior of the most innovative consumers, sometimes in the small stories deep within a newspaper. Sometimes early indicators take the form of new journals or publications indicating the rising popularity of some new technology. Other times a few words in the speech of an important politician will signal some new legislation.

Early indicators are particularly important in moving from a set of scenarios to a single strategy when you cannot identify a single "strategy for all seasons." If you cannot find such a robust strategy, but you have rehearsed what you would do in each of the scenarios, then you keep a very close ear to the ground for early indicators that suggest movement in the direction of one scenario or another. When you have accrued enough indicators to give you confidence that you know which scenario is unfolding, then you start to implement the strategy most appropriate to that scenario.

Moving from Scenarios to Strategy Scenarios by themselves do not determine strategy any more than a forecast does. A strategy needs to be developed in light of a set of scenarios. Think of scenarios as different hands of cards you might be dealt; think of strategies as the way you would play those cards. Sometimes scenarios are developed after a strategy has been determined. In that case the scenarios serve as a kind of wind tunnel for stress-testing a strategy. Think of the strategy as a model airplane. Under which conditions will it fly? Under which conditions will it crash?

Using scenarios to test a strategy can function like an insurance policy: You have a mechanism for surviving certain unfortunate contingencies. What if certain accidents happen? Do you have a contingency plan? Given a set of scenarios, there are several routes you can travel from scenarios to strategy. Rather than picking one scenario and betting the company, it is far better to find a strategy that is robust across the range of scenarios. "No brainers" create such a strategy, but not all scenarios have no brainers. Sometimes the relevant scenarios are sufficiently diverse that no single strategy will prevail across all of them. In that case it's a good idea to have a strategy appropriate to each, then attend very closely to early indicators that would tip you to the likelihood of one scenario over the others.

Not Rocket Science Scenario planning is not rocket science. There is a good deal of common sense involved in the practice of scenario planning. But there are many ways to go wrong, many mistakes that can be made. As with many practices, experience is a good teacher. Skilled facilitation by an experienced practitioner is a must.

Fortunately, the number of skilled practitioners is increasing every day. As early as the turn of the century, in 2000, the Corporate Strategy Board polled its members to find out what tools they used most for looking into the future. Responses from 183 corporations showed scenario planning to be the most popular of eight different tools including SWOT analysis, Delphi polling, Michael Porter's five forces of competitive position, and other such well-known planning methods.

Scenario Planning and Strategic Forecasting

At a basic level, there are three elements of motivation. 
<ul>
<li>Self-confidence or self-efficacy. The feeling that you can do this.</li>
<li>Finding the task unpleasant. </li>
<li>Sensitivity to time. We&#39;re sensitive to when rewards are realized.</li>
</ul>

Why we can’t seem to motivate ourselves

We are awful at long-term planning. We can stay motivated for a couple of days or a week, but we find it hard to plan a semester-long paper or a retirement plan.
It is essential to have definite goals, in well-defined words, and measured hours. What matters is if you can visualize yourself working on the goal.

The right way to set goals

You can&#39;t have complete control over every outcome. You may not always have the best set of cards, but it shouldn&#39;t stop you from playing those cards the best way you can.
Learn to work with what you&#39;ve got. Just like a poker game, you can maximize your chances. It starts with basic elements, like getting enough sleep and eating well.

Motivating yourself better

Boredom is our natural state of saying &quot;this has no significance&quot;. Regrettably, it gets activated for a lot of things that are useful in the long-term.
When you realize that you can do your hardest work when you have the most energy, you&#39;ll find you&#39;ll accomplish more than your competition.

Why we’re bored

Why do we procrastinate? I dig into the science with leading researcher and procrastination expert, Piers Steel.

Recently, I published my <a dir="ltr" href="https://www.scotthyoung.com/blog/2020/11/02/motivation/">Complete Guide to Motivation </a>. The guide covers the research landscape on motivation from psychological, neuroscientific and economic perspectives. One of the key researchers I highlighted was <a dir="ltr" href="https://www.amazon.com/dp/B004EWEUWE/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&amp;btkr=1">Piers Steel </a>, a leading expert on procrastination.

Since I found his research findings so helpful in my own understanding of procrastination, I invited him to sit down with me to chat about it. What follows is our deeper look into the research behind motivation and procrastination.

Below I’ve highlighted a few parts of our conversation:

On why we can’t seem to motivate ourselves:

At the simplest level, it’s three factors and one of them is the most important. …

Your self-confidence or self-efficacy. Your feeling that I have the ability to do this. If you feel like “Yeah, I got this,” that really helps. …

If you find the task unpleasant that’s another, of course, pretty obvious element in motivation. …

But the last one, and this is the one we miss most is time and your sensitivity to time. We’re very sensitive to when rewards are realized.

What does research show is the best way to deal with procrastination:

The easiest and fastest way, which most people don’t mind, is distancing temptations. … If we can delay our temptations by ten, fifteen, twenty seconds, that’s enough to take the oomph off of them.

What Steel calls the “nuclear option” that works really well (but nobody wants to use it):

That’s called precommitment. … If you really want to get something done and you’re willing to make a bet, and if you don’t do it, you give me $10,000 and if you do do it, you give me a handshake, that will get it done, 100%.

But can telling other people about your goals actually backfire? Steel explains:

If I’m telling other people, “Yeah I’m going to start exercising,” I’ve actually done myself motivational damage. Because it’s vague and non-specific and I get a certain satisfaction or virtue by saying it. And that actually satisfies my need to exercise somewhat. You might sort of think of this as motivational pornography, where the image or verbal takes the place of the real.

Self Control and the Right Way to Set Goals

Why we’re <a dir="ltr" href="https://www.scotthyoung.com/blog/2020/12/07/planning/">terrible at long-term planning </a>(and why this wouldn’t have been a problem for our ancestors):

A week is actually, motivationally a long, long way off. A couple days, yeah, that’s pretty much it. And we’re the superstars of self-control of the animal kingdom. Our capacity to wait for a day or two is mind-blowing, compared to the animal kingdom. But when you have a semester-long paper or a retirement plan or a four year degree, two-days just don’t cut it. But it really matches well for when the panic comes in, when your natural discount has activated.

But this is all natural, if you went back to hunter gathering, you’d fit perfectly. There would be no procrastination.

Motivation comes with an eye-dropper when you want it, and a firehose at the end. What we want is a nice tall glass of motivation, but we don’t really have that. We have this really messed up system.

What does research say about the most effective way to set goals?

We know the mechanics behind proper goal-setting. I even tried to make a new acroynm to compete with SMART goals, CSI-Approach (Challenging, Specific, Immediate and Approach Goals).

One of the worst goals you can have is, “I’m not eating candy”, because how can you be “soon” not eating candy. You can’t. What would be better is, “I’m going to eat more salads.” or, “When I want to snack, I’m going to eat carrot sticks.”

From <a dir="ltr" href="https://www.scotthyoung.com/blog/2020/11/02/motivation/#07-03">Temporal Motivation Theory </a>we have expectancy, value and time. Challenging has to do with expectancy and value, and goal commitment which has been studied a lot. If you have a goal but you’re not committed to it, that really matters a lot. Do you feel committed to it? Can you reshape it so that you’re committed?

The Challenging part is to make it seem in the realm of the possible, but also to make it worthwhile.

Specific and immediate is the limbic system. Were trying to move it out of the realm of the abstract, into the concrete. “I want to do well” or “I want to lose weight” is really abstract. What exactly do you want to do, as if you’re giving someone else? You want to know where that finishing line is. Then you want to play with the immediacy. Limbic system if it’s short enough term, that’s what will keep the motivation up.

We need it to be approach because we can’t have deadlines around avoidance goals. We put all those elements together and we have a working goal.

[What matters is that] you can visualize yourself doing it. … Because otherwise you’re in slippery goal land. If you don’t have definite goals, in definite words or definite hours, then you’re not going to be moving forward on it.

How can you motivate yourself better? Can you?

Sometimes you’re not dealt the best set of hands, but it doesn’t stop you from playing those cards the best you can. You’ve got to learn how to play those cards—your motivational repertoire—and maybe even know which cards you can kind of do better with. If you’re not getting enough sleep, … you can’t go wrong by improving your sleep. Are you eating well? These are all basic elements.

Bentley X.

KENNETH H. BLANCHARD