The World of Planning and Plans That Don't Work Out

The earliest photograph I remember from my childhood dates back to when I was just three years old: My brother hadn't been born yet... I see myself with my mother on the windowsill of the top floor of a four-story apartment building in Erenköy. On stage, there are students from Erenköy Girls' High School, sitting on a divan with a large patterned, pleated Sümerbank fabric skirt, wearing navy blue jilbabis, their hair carefully braided on both sides, carrying books and notebooks resting on their chests. It's the end of 1974. It could also be the beginning of 1975. Everything I remember is like a scene from one of Ertem Eğilmez's films from those years... My mother is talking: "My daughter will grow up like these older sisters, she will go to school. Come on, my beautiful girl, drink your milk now." In her hand is a cup of milk I'm resisting drinking, on her tongue are her dreams for her daughter...

The next photo is a proud school pose I gave my father on our flower-filled balcony. Since I had to wait until I was seven to start school, I was bigger than my peers, and so I proudly put on my black smock, which would look awkward on me for five years, and smiled at the camera with my missing teeth. With my hair pulled back into two ponytails and insisting on wearing the pointed "boyish" collar I chose instead of the carefully knitted white lace collar my mother made, because I thought it looked more "serious"...

Every memory I have of school after that photo includes my fascination with planning, which I guarantee was inherited from my grandfather, who, despite being just a small-town shopkeeper, made himself an annual work plan. "First, I'll come home from school, then I'll do my one-page U writing assignment. Then I can eat..." Back then, I didn't know the terms time management, efficient work, or planning, but it was an instinct passed down through the genes. The sense of security that comes from dividing time into small chunks and knowing what to fill each chunk with. While preparing for university, I couldn't slow myself down, and the study and time plans I made for my friends seemed to foreshadow that a significant part of my profession would be project management. Although the free-spirited side of me sometimes tickled my more spontaneous and adventurous side, I had chosen to plan everything in my life.

If life were not in the hands of a skilled screenwriter beyond our imagination, I might have been inclined to believe that planning has a controlling, slightly godlike aspect that keeps all variables under control. Fortunately, that was not the case. The sandcastles of childhood were destroyed, and I witnessed the ironic collapse of my plans for life at the hands of an invisible force. I found myself in the slightly reproachful tone of the naive young man from Çanakkale, played by Ata Demirer in the film Eyvah Eyvah, when he says to his beloved fiancée, "I never make plans because they never work out." The disappointment of being deceived by an obsessive childhood love...

As if that weren't enough, VUCA began to be used in the 2000s to describe the business world globally.^[1] The expression underscores how volatile, chaotic, and unpredictable business life is, while also planting a bomb under my planning efforts. Trying to plan under constantly changing conditions has become as futile an endeavor as trying to bail water out of a leaky boat with a bucket. 

In a world where everything changes so rapidly, how meaningful was it to continue making plans? 

Was it worth incurring such labor costs for business plans and budgets that won't hold up and will constantly change anyway? 

Wouldn't the caravan have fixed itself along the way? 

Many businesspeople, loyal to their old habits, had thankfully come to accept the arguments for turning their intense incompatibility with planning into divorce. After overcoming the initial shock of this trend, I chose to remain a faithful lover who continued to hold on to my childhood love, despite all the betrayals. For over time, I realized that planning is more than a static sequence of activities; it is a lever that structures the mind, provides flexibility of movement, strengthens the bond between the ultimate goal and today, and makes it easier to remain resilient in the face of adversity.  The world has laid the groundwork for a new model called "agile planning," which has helped me repair my shaken confidence in planning. 

The bottom line, in my opinion, is this: in work and in life:

• Plans always change. Change is inevitable. We make plans not so they won't change, but to structure and clear our minds. 
• What matters is not the absence of a plan, but our flexibility and agility to change the plans we make.
• We must have a long-term goal, a roadmap for the future in this life. Where do we want to go? Why do we want this? What does it mean to us? What are the right steps we need to take today on this path? 
• The recent buzzword "focus on the moment, live in the moment" does not mean simply focusing on the moment and being short-sighted, as is commonly believed. On the contrary, it requires a thorough analysis of the context in which one finds oneself. Those who analyze well will have accurate predictions for the future and will be prudent and cautious. In short, living in the moment and making plans are not mutually exclusive, as is commonly believed. 
• When conditions become difficult for us or change unpredictably, remembering our ultimate goal is the easiest way to stay on course. As long as we know the reason, we will always find a way to change the how.

Montaigne, who said, "No wind is favorable to those who do not know their destination," probably said this in the 16th century, when America had been discovered for no more than 50 years. Of course, today's technology, economic order, and understanding of global competition cannot be compared to those days, but thankfully, there is no time limit on wisdom about the fundamentals of life. In short, that little girl sitting on the windowsill of an Erenköy apartment in the 70s is still making plans. Believing that planning is the fuel that keeps life going, and knowing that planning makes one stronger and more flexible in facing life's surprises...

^[1] VUCA is an English acronym first used in 1987, standing for volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity. It was first introduced by the US military to describe the new security environment that emerged with the end of the Cold War. The VUCA concept was then revisited by the US military following the September 11 terrorist attacks in 2001. Over the past 20 years, this acronym has been embraced by the business community as the best way to describe the chaotic business world, characterized by rapid change and the associated uncertainties.

Emine Ebru Arslan