How do you prepare for difficult meetings without becoming trapped by your own plan?
A well-structured plan gives you confidence before a high-stakes meeting, but no plan survives reality unchanged. Unexpected challenges will arise, and if you rely too much on a rigid plan, panic can set in.
As Eisenhower said: “Plans are useless, but planning is essential.”
💡 The key takeaways:
✅ Use planning to warm up your brain, just like an athlete before a race.
✅ To make sure you do it, use a structured method, such as Storytelling or the Two-Minute message.
✅ Once the meeting starts, stay agile. Adapt and respond with confidence.
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⸻ 👉 Full text:
My takeaway from the coaching session today is about planning difficult meetings without becoming a victim of your own plan.
Now, a solid plan may give you a sense of security and confidence before you go in but of course you can’t prepare for every eventuality and there are always nasty surprises. And these nasty surprises can really make you panic if you were relying too much on your plans.
Like Eisenhower said, when you come into contact with the enemy, plans are useless. On the other hand, planning is essential.
So how do you plan perfectly?
What I suggest is techniques like Storytelling or the TWO MINIUTE MESSAGE.
Both techniques force you to explain something using a certain format. When planning, you are usually only explaining to yourself, but this ensures gets your brain warmed up for the real event. It’s a bit like a an athlete warming up for a race!
Using techniques like Storytelling and the TWO MINIUTE MESSAGE, you can plan perfectly, though you can’t produce a perfect plan. Do you see the difference?
“Lâcher prise”, as the French say, so that when you get into the difficult meeting you feel confident and you’re also able to act with agility, to be spontaneous, and not be put off when something unexpected comes up.
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