Sprout Vision

Sprout Sweater Episode 18 : Vision, Strategy, Tactics and the Good Old Sprout

Join Dave Algeo aboard "Sprout 1" and take another journey into your inner world where mind, meaning and metaphor collide.

In this episode, Dave builds on last week's episode in which he encouraged you to work on not just in your life. This week, he shares a simple approach to how you can do this - sit back and learn how cabbages, slices and sprouts can help you develop a great plan for your life.

Dave Algeo is a writer, coach, trainer and speaker empowering others to live big, by identifying the small but significant things that can transform the life we are living. Join Dave on the good ship 'Sprout1' as we explore the inner galaxy of the human mind, and find the sprouts that make the biggest difference. These are the sprouts you are looking for.

Search for 'Sprout Sweater' in your favourite podcast feed. To find out more about the podcast, and episode show notes at Podcast — Stress(ed) Guru and more about his in-person and online events at www.stressedguru.com. Drop Dave a line at dave@sproutsweater.com to ask questions, offer feedback or suggestions for future podcast content.

Episode 18 Show Notes

The following is a rough draft of the content (not a full transcript - more notes forming the basis of the podcast recording

Vision, strategy, tactics also known as the cabbage, the slices and the sprouts. 

Welcome aboard sprout1, I’m your host Dave Algeo chief sprout sweater. Settle back and ready yourselves for another short trip into your inner space. We will be serving up your meal of cabbages and sprouts with a dollop of insight into creating a more coherent approach to achieving your goals. 

Its episode 18 vision, strategy, tactics and the good old sprout.

And as we lift off the pad and before you get into the episode don’t forget if you find the demands of life and the meaning of it all is leading you to sleepless nights, tossing and turning with deep and not so deep questions rattling around your head, then hop on over to the sproutsweater.com to gain access to my free Operation Snooze Sleep Improvement audio program. Start getting your head back and your shit together so that you can start getting life back on your terms, sproutsweater.com.

In last week’s episode, I encouraged you to step away from working in your life and to spend some time working on it. In other words, to look at the bigger picture and to consider how your life as it is being lived now really matches up to your vision for your life and how it compliments your values and whether what you are doing and how you are living actually is meaningful to you in a deeper sense. This week as promised I want to give you a simple framework to help you to do just that. To work on rather than in your life and I am also planning to have a great interview with a friend and part inspiration to the content here Pete Wilkinson who is the author of Unstoppable Using the Power of Focus to Take Action and Achieve Your Goals and you’ll find the link in the show notes for that. That interview will develop this framework in what Pete calls the 135 plan. 

Enough of that for now. What I want to do now is give you the framework because I’m a big believer that getting detailed heavy too soon can be a bit of a barrier to it. I want to give you the concept and the context first and then you can start and flesh this out over time. So, in order to do so, I want to revisit my time as a police officer. Don’t worry no war stories per se but I do think there is something useful to share from my time dealing with various incidents ranging I guess in complexity and severity. Now as a young cop entering the service, I found a huge volume of acronyms and cloudy language being used and it was used to convey complex messages quickly and effectively. The phonetic alphabet being one of them. You know alpha, bravo, delta, Charlie all that kind of thing. That is there so the chances of mishearing when say given a vehicle registration is minimised because over a crackly radio S and F sound the same. But sierra and foxtrot you know what letters you’re talking about. So that’s the point of some of this language. Anyway, there was one set of words that I came to understand that I didn’t relate to initially and you know other than it being at sporting events for something like that. But it was the words Bronze, Silver and Gold. As you can imagine immediately my thoughts go to the Olympics, but they actually related to the level of command and the focus that you give when managing an incident with some relative complexity. Now I’m going to generalise here in a brief explanation. Gold referred to that top-level overview that vision of what do we want you to know there is incident here, what do we want as the ideal outcome. The silver was the kind of strategic level area where we turn that vision into a small number of objectives and I'll give an example of that shortly. We turn it into objectives, and we have somebody focusing at that level to make sure that strategy is achieved or fulfilled in order to achieve the vision. Then you have bronze which is the boots on the ground the leadership is there to manage the staff and the resources to ensure that the tactics are achieved that help you achieve the objectives and the strategies at silver level and thus the vision at gold level. So, the bronze is that kind of getting things done at the ground level. It might sound a bit complicated but let me give an example from a policing context then we will kind of turn it into something that’s useful from a personal perspective. Let’s just say as a general example there has been a break-in in a large factory, high-value items stolen. But in the process damage has been caused to a gas pipe so the site is unsafe and there’s a risk that there might be a fire or an explosion. So that’s quite a complex situation to manage with a number of issues. We’ve got the baddies. We’ve got the outstanding property that’s stolen which could be high value. We’ve got the damage to it and the risk to the public at large. So, if say as a lowly cop I was to attend that first off if I didn’t realise that complexity and that level of complexity, I might end up focusing on one aspect to exclusion of all the others. And that’s the risk. I might end up looking at how can I preserve evidence and not realise that there is a danger to the public or focus on that and perhaps risk losing evidence. So, we need that bigger picture. We need that focus which can be carried out by anybody but in the policing of this and content of this, it might be somebody of a higher rank who takes that higher-level view. Might be an inspector or superintendent depending on the level of the incident. And what they do is they’ll look at it and think ‘what have we got here and what are the risks and what is the ideal outcome?’. So, let’s just generally say the ideal outcome here would be a safe resolution to the safety of the site so the public are no longer at risk and then to catch the criminals and recover the property just to keep it very simple. That’s the vision. That’s the ideal outcome. We have somebody who decided that and formulated that and then works to translate it into the strategic level, the silver level. And may do this in consultation but what we are doing is talking about breaking that vision into chunks where there is a focus on key objectives because the objectives if we achieve them will then mean that the vision has been achieved. So, the objectives may be, and I’m just going to be general here three things. Ensuring public safety, secondly protection and gathering of evidence and thirdly the capture and recovery of the offenders and the property that’s stolen. So, let’s say we have 3 chunks there that then gives us an idea of the strategy we need to focus on. We need to focus on those 3 key areas. But in order to actually achieve this, we need to turn that into tactics, things that need to be done. That’s where the bronze level comes in, that’s the boots on the ground who take ownership here. The lowly sergeant say Sgt Algeo is there is given the job of protecting the scene and preserving public safety. So, my job as Sgt Algeo would be to think right what do I do, I need to form a cordon. That’s just a fancy term for maintaining a protective ring around the building at a safe distance. Evacuating anybody inside that ring whether it’s in the factory or in a house that might fall inside the ring and getting everybody out and making sure nobody goes in. That might involve getting other police officers at certain points around that ring, putting cones, putting protective tape, putting police cars on the road with flashy lights just to make sure that nobody drives in or out and that kind of thing. So that tactical level is the bronze level. And then some other sergeant might be responsible for the same preservation. The idea of looking after the evidence and they’re maybe looking at maybe getting the CSI’s, the Crime Scene Investigators ready. We need to look at are there any witnesses who are now out of sight that we can interview etc., etc. But at that point, the strategic level, silver what’s the order of priority here. What’s the most important chunk? I would suggest here, and we would all probably agree the first thing is public safety. The baddies we can catch another day we need to make sure nobody else gets hurt. So that takes us, president. So, at the bronze level, we have to understand there is an order and priority and that I might have to go first with my tasks while another sergeant and their team waits. Now that’s a very simple level of the gold, silver, bronze. I am oversimplifying it, but I guess it’s the key elements and it’s really useful for us to think about this if we translate that into looking at our life, working on our life rather than just in it. How do we translate that across because if the gold represents the vision and the outcome of our desired outcome, the silver is that strategic what are the elements if we work towards, we will achieve that vision. And the bronze what are the tactics.

This is where I am going to change things around a little bit. Because let’s be right you are not, you don’t have the resources of a police force and yes, they are strapped as a lot of public sector organisations are at the moment but as an individual, chances are there is just you. There may be other support like a coach, friends, family, colleagues at a gym. There are other resources out there but ultimately you and your personal goals, it’s you that takes charge of this. Its no doubt you know that when you set yourself a goal and you identify some actions what we can often do is step into the role of doing the actions and forgetting to check in on the bigger picture and how we are proceeding and do these actions make a difference and move us towards it. Or we end up staying in the planning and dreaming phase and we don’t actually move towards the tactical practical doing the things phase. To be honest, it’s a bit woolly in the middle ‘I’m not sure what I need to be doing’, ‘I’m not sure what areas I need to break this down into’. That’s where we can fall into not achieving our goal in action freeze or whatever. This is where I want to kind of shift things across to set a gold, silver, bronze. Let’s think about cabbage slices and sprouts.

So, the cabbage. This represents the gold level. This is that vision, the bigger picture and I’m not going to regurgitate what I talked about in the last two weeks episodes or the last weeks’ episode in particular. Revisit that if you want to check that out because I did talk about how do you work on your life, develop that bigger vision and also check out episode 10 where I talk about goals and what’s the point where I talk about the idea of achieving goals within the context of the bigger picture. But the point is it’s having a bigger picture. It’s better to keep that general because a lot of information that we have, that we could potentially have is unknown at this time, the future. We don’t know what is going to happen in the future and life has a way doesn’t it of chucking things under your feet and getting in the way and even offer up different opportunities or changing your mind. So very general vision that’s loose can be really useful in helping us see right. For me, as I mentioned in episode 10, I think it was or even last week’s episode, I want to be in my 60s healthier and fitter than I am now. Barring mishap and all the other things then I have a very rough vision and out of that, I need to start slicing that cabbage down. Because that vision is one thing, that dream is one thing but if I was to wait until I turned 61 to suddenly start, I’ve missed a) a lot of years, 9 years plus of action that I could be taking and also what deterioration could happen in my health that makes it even harder at the point. So, it’s not about leaving it to the last minute. So, I have my vision, my cabbage but rather than going straight to the sprouts, the tactics I need to start to break it into chunks, slices and why is that. It’s pretty much because my brain can’t handle the big vision as a whole and then translate directly into tactics in a coherent way. It handles slicing and breaking things down. So let’s start to slice that cabbage into say two to four slices. You have more but ideally, we are talking about focus so less more effectively, so 2, 3 or 4 I tend to go for 3. These slices are the areas that you need to take focus action in to move you forward. Instead of ensuring public safety and evidence gathering as I mentioned in the previous example for this one, it might be rest, eat and move. I’m just using those as very simple labels tell it straight. I’m stepping away from the word diet because there are so many connotations that I want to veer away from. Even exercise because exercise means different things to different people. Rest, eat, move. I may have identified hypothetically that I need to get my sleep back. I need to feel more energetic and know that I find it hard to switch off. Eat, yeah, I know I tend to be all or nothing in my thinking. In next weeks episode, I’m going to explore that. And I need to look at how I can eat healthier and eat less of the not so good stuff. Move, I need to get more movement into my day more often. So that’s my general objectives. But what’s useful at that slice level is to turn it into something a little bit more measurable. Something against which we can measure your progress and success. So perhaps it’s to for rest wake up more, wake up on a morning feeling more rested more often than not. So have more days where I feel like I’ve had a good night’s sleep than not. Beat the week 4 days out of 7 for example that for me would be a success and move me towards, or 5 days if I’ve already achieved the 4 etc. Eat might be to eat less takeaways or limit my takeaways to one a week. That kind of thing depending on the situation we are in. That’s a measure of success. 

Then I can move to the sprouts, and this is where we can focus on each objective in isolation, eat, rest, move and consider the actions. Yes, there may be some overlap so let’s be right by sleeping better I’ll feel more likely to eat right and move more but I can focus in it and look at what actions will move me towards that. What are the habits? These can be one-off habits and or they can be, sorry one-off actions and or habits that I can introduce. But the key is we need to break them down into small chunks, so they are achievable and doable. So, let’s for example say for rest I decide right I’m going spend some time sorting out my sleep environment. Tidy it up, declutter it that kind of thing. That’s a one-off. Yes, it will take some maintenance but on the whole, it’s a one-off action. Another might be that I’m going to take 10 minutes every day twice a day I’m going to set my phone alarm. Take 10 minutes a day, park the computer agendas and to-do lists and just go off and read a book for 10 minutes and relearn how to relax. That’s something I need to create as a habit. So those kinds of things are your sprouts. As we develop that across each of the 3 objectives, we have a series of actions. That in effect is what we have is the plan. We have the vision, the cabbage to which we are working. We have the slices which we have identified are the key elements of that vision. And we have the sprouts to sweat. Now we write it down and we check in on that cabbage regularly. Not too often because you don’t see progress as clearly. It’s a bit like me with Rosie growing up. I see her every day, I don’t see the changes that my mam sees when she comes to see her. She sees her once a week or every other week. She sees the changes far more clearly than I do because I’m close to it. So don’t check in on the cabbage every day or too frequently. The key is to identify the sprout sized actions that count. The ones that move you towards the slices and in so doing help you achieve the vision. And then we focus on ensuring they get sweated. As I’ve said in previous episodes track the sprouts, not the cabbage. Check-in on that and the slices but track the sprouts.

So as our craft the sprout 1 begins the landing process allowing you to return to your fellow humans, grab a piece of paper and split it into 3 sections – cabbage, slice, and sprout. Then take some time as I mentioned in last week’s episode don’t rush this or cram this. Just allow yourself 20 minutes a couple of times this week to develop your vision for life. Rough, loose but clear in what you would really like it to resemble. Check out last week’s episode as that refresh and then identify between 2 and 4 slices possible 3 is the optimum the areas that will require action. And then for each slice identify a handful of sprout sized actions or habits to implement. Focus on sweating those sprouts day-to-day. Hope that helps, take care for now.

I hope you’ve enjoyed your flight aboard sprout1. For show notes and information on how to get the podcast feed direct to your apple podcast Spotify or other favourite podcast feed visit sproutsweater.com and touchdown!

Links

Unstoppable: Using the Power of Focus to Take Action and Achieve your Goals by author Pete Wilkinson.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Unstoppable-Using-Power-Action-Achieve-ebook/dp/B00PZZOW9A

Episode 19 Teaser:

In episode 19 Dave identifies 'all or nothing' thinking as a common unhelpful approach to achieving our goals. He explains what it is and provides tips to tackle it.