I actually agree with Elizabeth Holmes here, but that is assuming that you have a goal/end that you absolutely know you want.

 

Isn't Elizabeth Holmes talking about not giving the people under her command any escape routes?

 

What? You must be connecting this to Sun Tzu's 'burn the boats and bridges behind your army', but she is commenting on herself here.

 

Wouldn't say a plan as such, but my mind tends to map out a number of possibilities and their projected trajectories. I don't deal terribly well with entirely unforeseen, solve-me-now scenarios.

Judgers are supposed to need closure while perceivers are supposed to be fine with multiple possibilities. Personally, I'd say there's some fear involved in my need for mapping out the future. The less I fear and the more relaxed I am, the less closure I need.

 

Would you say that mapping out the future mitigates risk and that is the reason for the feeling of relaxation? Fear of the unknown sounds like Te to me. Ni is perception and so there is no fear there.


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Multiple plans tends to be an Ni thing, but i do have to say that if i dont have a backup plan, then i have a plan for dealing with failure a little bit better. Ya know instead of just being blindsided by it and being mentaly broken down or upset if the plan doesnt work. Lately the things ive planned for havent allowed for a "backup plan" so ive had to do more of, making a plan to deal with possible failure.

 

Right - in other words setting expectations appropriately, some might say pessimistically?


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Yup I always have a backup plan(s).
I hate not having options in case Plan A doesn't work out, and it's relatively easy for me to switch to different plans depending on the situation or just my mood.
I make plans so the chances that I'll succeed increases.
I don't know if its a P/J thing; I used to type as INTP and I did exactly the same.

 

Is there a point of no return when executing your plan?

 

I always have at least one backup plan, and constantly revise the main plan and the backups as new information presents itself. I'd rather not blindly commit myself to a single course of action, especially if it involves variables provided by other people or particular events. As they say, no plan survives contact with the enemy, and if you cannot improvise and adapt, you are increasingly unlikely to overcome.

 

Different options with plans is just more of something that is 'obvious' to Ni>Te rather than something that needs to be mulled over. Exceptions exist, of course.

 

I have backup plans and plans for everything.. to the point it gets really annoying since I constantly compare plans and try to see which is best.

 

No. I don't have a backup plan exactly. I have the best plan which I'll cultivate, with a bunch of ideas, notes, scribbles, expectations, perspectives, memories , contingencies, and options that exist in the background.

A backup plan isn't having an umbrellas in case it rains. A backup plan is knowing what you would do if you were arrested in a different country, with illegal substances, in a stolen car, with a bunch of warrants for your arrest, naked.

 

I find that for the important things - a presentation or a release or a planned personal event of significant importance I always have multiple plans in place for all the moveable parts. What is your experience? Do you do the same? Do you think that having multiple plans is more a "P" type thing rather than a "J" type?

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I have plan A-Z, but sadly most people around me are stupid so its extremely hard to get anything done. Also parents will irrationally push children one direction, even though its clear they can not make it on that route, or that they are terrible at it instead of helping their natural talents.

Not everyone is a football player
Not everyone is going to be a doctor
Not everyone can sing

Parents need to accept it

 

same as some of the other people have said. i pick what i'm going to do, and then i mentally scan what the permutations might be. and then or simultaneously, i scan what i've 'got' to deal with any of hte permutations. so long as there's a sense of having something or other in the arsenal for most of the things i can imagine happening, i don't spend much more time than that on it.

it's a 'burn that bridge when i get to it' thing. i just kind of check my mental pockets to make sure i either have matches, or if the matches are going to be all used up, i'll be able to scare some up once i'm in the neighbourhood. i find that super-planning works pretty poorly for me. too much focus makes me miss things.

 

I usually have like Seven. I always expect the worst possible scenario and try to be covered all over. Its not cheap sometimes. I must admit, when I go through 2 plans and they both don't go as planned, I usually am happy I have plan 3.

The most efficient way when your plan goes sour, is to take the loss and quickly make up for it and continue. Trying the same thing over and over and expecting different results is pure insanity.

I also can't stand people who just act on impulse. Though this makes them easier to manipulate.

Usually, My first plan is my best which usually works and the cycle stops right there.

Don't you just hate it when people don't listen?

Also- This...(add,http) ://video.anyclip.com/movies/the-dukes-of-hazzard/plan-b/#!quotes

sry level 10..

 

I also can't stand people who just act on impulse.

That more or less equals "I can't stand people".

 

Backup plans should be obligatory for everything that is important.
Unfortunately one does not have the energy to plan everything as detailed as that.

Asking yourself what you would actually do if X event happened is a good start.
Then you can try to sculpt that expected reaction from yourself
into something better than the scramble to stay on top it would have been.

 

do you go through the scenarios of the plan and ask yourself what you would do if at each point, something failed?

 

Not exactly fully mapped backup plans. Unless a particular set of tasks is a repetitious one, I don't even have a fully mapped main plan. Well, it's still more detailed by the yardstick of the people I work with but by my standards not fully mapped. You can't tell the future so a fully mapped plan is a waste of time and for this very reason I will usually think of other options for when/if the main plan doesn't play out the way I want it to. The other options I think through are mainly disaster possibilities (and there are plenty); just to make sure I am covered so I can sleep at night. There is more a main goal than main plan; the plan needs to be adaptable. I used to think that this was the way every responsible adult thought and was floored to discover that this kind of thinking isn't as common as it I thought it was - it brought a whole new level of fear to my current business partnership/setup.

To answer your question in relation to Elizabeth Holmes' comment; yes, I believe what she says is true. That's what it takes to get there. I also view success like hers to be a lottery though. The hard work and determination is merely the price of the ticket; not everyone goes on to win after buying a ticket.

 

you differentiate between goal and plan. your goals are too broad to plan for?

 

Yeah, but that is probably because of Ne for me. Ne sees possibilities, so if things dont go according to plan, you usually would have already thought of an alternative or a possible solution that you just need to tweak to fit the actual situation.

 

Ne sees possibilities but does nothing about them (perception) while Te guards against changing events on the ground mechanistically?

 

It depends on what it is, really. Sometimes, I don't really have plans. Mostly, though, I do plan and, rather than creating backup plans, I merely afford myself some elbow-room within my plans to adapt it if something goes wrong. For example, I plan out my coursework for each day, yet I often leave a day or two off each week so that I can juggle it around if I need to.

 

In this case, what do you do if you overbuffer?

 

Personally, I don't usually prefer to do a ton of planning period unless it is related to a specific goal. Periods of my life where I am goal directed in this way tend to alternate with times of just sort of floating through routine, and be very situational to a specific opportunity.

Occasions like giving a presentation are more instinctive to me. Over-planning without having direct experience with the audience or innate confidence in being able to make on the fly judgments on the material being presented makes me really rigid, over-analytical, and trees in the forest in the way I would prepare. I would rather spend time really gutting through the material than trying to plan the presentation itself, and let instinct carry me through the delivery part. For that reason things like notecards, or practicing slides has made me worse at presenting than more prepared.

When it comes to a major financial decision, or career switch, yes, there is a lot of secondary planning involved there. It's not so much a case of having one big plan with several backups as it is one singular goal, one singular method of doing what is needed to reach it, and awareness of side benefits of that method that aren't related to the single goal. What is difficult is when I learn something that throws a wrench in the plan and have to realign the overall plan. This takes a lot of mental energy on my part.

Circling back to type mapping, planning in this way is largely dictated by Te not Ni. Ni gives the planning a future orientation more than current logistical, but overall planning for me depends on seeing external needs, benefits and how something is a good value of time and resources. All of this requires an assessment, and the assessing functions are Thinking and Feeling (J).

 

Yes, i always try to have a backup plan. I also think that is because of Ni, rather than P/J.

 

Of course I do.. And I dont I am creating one just in time..

 

one thing worth mentioning. the question im sure was "a plan" no where does it ask if it was a "good plan" ha! because i'll tell you I've had some shitty ass plans :-D

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surely a shitty as plan is better than no plan at all?

 

I usually have a contingency plan of sorts, but it's not really because I intentionally made a plan. It's more like a route map that exists out in the world, and I can see it. If I want to get from point A to point B, this is the shortest/fastest route; but if there is a road block, then there are these other less optimal routes that will ultimately get me from A to B. I don't think about everything that could possibly go wrong on my route from A to B, but if I know certain things have a high potential to happen or have a high potential to very negatively affect my route given some historical data, I will consider alternatives to work around that road block.

Ex. I may not consider a random car accident on some small side street; a) it's not likely to happen while I'm driving and b) routing around something like that is relatively easy. But If I know that there is major road construction in a certain area and that traffic tends to be really bad at certain times of day, I will consider alternate routes to avoid those areas and/or early bailout points if things go south.

The same things happens in life. For example, I had to do some survey work this past week and in the mornings the ground and dirt roads are still frozen so getting around isn't a problem, but in the afternoon it's warm enough that things are starting to thaw out so the roads turn into a big muddy mess and driving in agricultural fields gets to be a challenge. Not knowing for sure how bad the roads were going to be, Plan A was to work from the southeast corner of the project area to the northwest corner to minimize driving around time. Once the roads and cultivated fields started getting too muddy to drive in, we had to change tactics. So we jumped around the project area in the afternoon so we could stick to better roads and pastures/hay fields where there was less risk of getting stuck. The next morning, the roads were frozen again, so we went to the areas that were the most difficult to get to because of bad road access and/or having to drive across cultivated fields first, saving the areas with better access for later in the day when we knew the roads would get muddy. Before we even left the office, we knew the road conditions might be an issue, but we had no way of knowing what the exact road conditions would be until we got to the project area, so we had to plan for both possibilities (and a third possibility of being unable to drive most places and having to walk, which we didn't end up needing to worry about). Plan A was the most efficient, but ultimately didn't work out, so we moved to Plan B.

Ultimately the goal dictates the plan, not the other way around. If the goal is to get to B, then there are very few efficient routes to that goal, so I only need consider those handful of routes and plan for things along those routes. Once the goal is made, the paths (plans) are usually pretty obvious (to me anyway).

 

I have many back-up plans. Nothing wrong with it. There is a chance something may not work out.

 

Depends... If I'm just taking out the trash or something I view as low priority, I don't really plan at all. If I'm going to rob a bank or something, I'll have about a million different contingencies worked out. I wouldn't necessary consider them "plans"; I usually only have one solid plan. More like, 'if x happens then insert y'.

It's built dynamically to allow for maneuvering, should certain events occur. Static plans are practically doomed to fail at some point. Especially when you take into account the unpredictable emotions of human-beings in high pressure situations.

Sometimes it's necessary to have completely unique back-up plans; for such occasions I do so accordingly. But for the most part, one solid dynamic plan is all most things require.

 

I find that for the important things - a presentation or a release or a planned personal event of significant importance I always have multiple plans in place for all the moveable parts. What is your experience? Do you do the same? Do you think that having multiple plans is more a "P" type thing rather than a "J" type?

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It’s a “Ni” thing. Makes you “P”-ish

 

Because of the different cognitive functions at work, it's hard to pinpoint whether or not planning is more P or J. It seems like the Ni + Te tends to be what creates the sorts of plans, so I'd argue that it's both.

But yes, I always have contingency plans except for in matters of the heart. I can't plan a single thing when it comes to romance/love. It just happens and that sorta pisses me off. : (