The committee of one

I was fortunate to stumble upon an epiphany of sorts in my last session with Dan. As I mentioned in my last post, learning new techniques for developing staff, creating a positive atmosphere and planning is actually the easy part. The harder task is incorporating these new techniques into an already jam-packed day.
I specifically talked to Dan about planning. Looking at the formal process covered in the material, I wanted to understand where the possible points of variation could come into play. Simply put, I felt like I was good at identifying the objective, highlighting pros and cons, targeting a date and outlining obstacles and possible solutions. I was not so good when it came to identifying accountability and I wanted to know how the process could be customized to suit me as an individual.
Accountability, probably to no one's surprise, is the place where most planning breaks down. I know this had been my experience. That wasn't the epiphany. The epiphany for me was why.
Having taken the leadership index at the beginning of the sessions (as well as any number of DiSC and Myers-Briggs tests during my career), I know that I'm the type of person who likes possibilities more than absolutes. I felt like this might be my issue in taking the final steps of the planning process. Turns out, that's not all there is to it.
The bigger issue is that I tend to plan by myself. Anti-collaborative, I know. I just have always seen it as easier (and faster!) to spell out as much of the process as I could by myself and then share/implement it as a collaborative effort. In doing so, I always ended up assigning myself the lion's share of the tasks. Why? Because I was the only one in the room and since it was my plan in the first place, I felt like I was always in the best position to know what needed to be done. Repeat this process too many times, and suddenly you're drowning in work.
Sometimes the best revelations are the ones you don't intend to find. This certainly shed an entirely different light on my planning process and I'm anxious to try a different tact next time. Who knows, maybe I'll actually enjoy the process?