Jawn Lam

The Planning Funnel

Power & PoliticsEssay4 min read

Forming the Aim defines the six layers of the planning funnel, from the actor at the top to the target at the bottom. Run on a real want, the layers do more than sort it. They show where the narrowing stalls, why a reading of another person has to be built from the top down, and why some disputes grow far larger than anything that was asked.

One want, narrowed

Ilse Navarro heads e-commerce at a regional grocery chain. For a year she has talked about wanting "more influence over the website." Run through the funnel, it narrows. The actor is Ilse. Her agenda is to be the person who decides how the chain's customers shop with it, online and in its stores. Her interest at the moment is a say in which products and prices the website features, which today are set by merchandising. Her objective is a seat on the pricing committee. Her goal is to be named as a voting member in the committee's charter when it is reissued in January. Her target is the chief merchandising officer, Warren Doyle, who chairs the committee and writes its charter.

For most of that year the want stopped at the interest. Each gap in the funnel has a question that closes it. If you can state an interest and no objective, ask what success would look like that you could write down without ambiguity. If you have an objective and no goal, ask what specific, measurable result would satisfy it. If you have a goal and no target, ask who controls whether it happens. That last question is the one people resist most, and the resistance is itself the sign of a skipped target. If you have jumped straight to a move, go back to the top and ask what long-running ambition it serves.

How far down the funnel is this plan clear?

Take one thing you want at work. Tick each statement that is true of it, from the top. The first one left unticked names the layer to work on and the question that sharpens it.

Where the plan standsActor: name the person who will decide and act, because everything below belongs to themAgenda: ask what long-running ambition this servesInterest: ask what the ambition needs now, in this situationObjective: ask what success would look like that you could write down without ambiguityGoal: ask what specific, measurable result would satisfy the objectiveTarget: ask who controls whether it happens; reluctance to answer is itself the signClear to the bottom: the want is ready for Decide

One later check is set aside: each layer is chosen to serve the one above it, so nothing below the first unclear layer can be trusted yet.2 later checks are set aside: each layer is chosen to serve the one above it, so nothing below the first unclear layer can be trusted yet.

Why the funnel runs one way

The one-way rule follows from how the layers are defined. An objective is an aim that serves an interest, a goal is the result that satisfies an objective, and a target is whoever has to be moved to reach a goal. Each layer is chosen by reference to the one above it, so a layer chosen first has nothing above it to answer to. A manager who starts from a rival they would like to beat, and then looks for a goal that would justify the contest, has a target and no agenda, and any agenda they name afterward was written to fit.

Surprises come from above

The same rule governs reading someone else. A surprise in their behavior points above the layer you were watching, and the higher the misread, the more it costs.

Ilse makes her case to Warren with data showing that featuring promoted products online lifts their sales in the stores. She has read his objective as protecting this year's margins, and the data speaks to that. Warren turns her down flatly, and she is surprised, because on margins her case is strong. The explanation sits higher up, in his agenda: Warren wants to remain the person who decides what the chain sells and at what price, and a seat for Ilse divides that decision, however good it is for margins. Arguing harder about margins would do nothing, since margins were never the obstacle. Ilse has to rebuild her picture of Warren from the agenda down.

A misread costs everything below the layer it sits in

Illustrative. Ilse's reading of Warren beside Warren as he is, opening on the layer she got wrong. Select another layer to see what a misread there would cost; every layer below it turns dashed.

  1. the person or group actingMisreadDriftsTouchedRead asWarren Doyle, chief merchandising officerWarren Doyle, chief merchandising officer
  2. their long-term ambitionMisreadDriftsTouchedRead asNever asked; taken to be running merchandising wellRemain the person who decides what the chain sells and at what price
  3. what they care about right nowMisreadDriftsTouchedRead asThis year's resultsKeep pricing decisions inside merchandising
  4. a concrete aim to pursueMisreadDriftsTouchedRead asProtect this year's marginsKeep the pricing committee's membership as it is
  5. the specific result they wantMisreadDriftsTouchedRead asFinish the year at or above the margin planReissue the charter in January with no new voting members
  6. Targetwho or what they must moveMisreadDriftsTouchedRead asAny proposal that costs marginIlse, whose bid for a seat he has to turn aside

Select the layer you got wrong.Actor misread. Misread the actor and the whole funnel belongs to someone who is not making the call. Every layer below it is read from the misread one, so its predictions drift.Agenda misread. Misread the agenda and every objective and goal you predict is wrong for as long as the misreading lasts. Ilse's margin data answered an aim Warren did not hold, so no argument about margins could move him. Every layer below it is read from the misread one, so its predictions drift.Interest misread. Misread the interest and you expect the wrong objectives until the situation shows what the agenda needs now. The agenda reading still stands, so the repair starts one layer down. Every layer below it is read from the misread one, so its predictions drift.Objective misread. Misread the objective and you are wrong only about the current move. With Warren's agenda read correctly, a second proposal could have repaired it. Every layer below it is read from the misread one, so its predictions drift.Goal misread. Misread the goal and you misjudge what would count as done: what result would satisfy the other person, and when they would stop pushing. Every layer below it is read from the misread one, so its predictions drift.

When an interest is read as an attack on an agenda

The difference between interest and agenda also explains why some disputes escalate suddenly. An interest can be lost and recovered, so people bargain over interests and accept the occasional loss. An agenda cannot be lost and recovered in the same way, so a threat to one is resisted with everything the person has.

Suppose that, before asking for any seat, Ilse asks only to see the pricing calendar two weeks earlier, so the website can plan its promotions in time. That request touches one of Warren's interests, a little control over when his team's plans become visible, and nothing more. Warren reads it as the first step in a bid to take the pricing decision from him, an attack on his agenda, and he responds as people do to a threat they cannot recover from: he goes to the chief executive and proposes that e-commerce report to merchandising. The size of the response makes sense only to someone who can see which layer Warren believed had been touched.

The layer a move touches and the layer it is read as touching

Illustrative. Switch between the two cases: the filled layer is the one the move touched, the outlined layer the one it was read as touching, and the panel gives the response the reading draws.

  1. Actorthe person or group actingMisreadDriftsTouchedRead asWarren Doyle, chief merchandising officer
  2. Agendatheir long-term ambitionMisreadDriftsTouchedRead asRemain the person who decides what the chain sells and at what price
  3. Interestwhat they care about right nowMisreadDriftsTouchedRead asSome control over when his team's plans become visible
  4. Objectivea concrete aim to pursueMisreadDriftsTouchedRead asKeep the pricing calendar inside merchandising until it is final
  5. Goalthe specific result they wantMisreadDriftsTouchedRead asRelease the calendar on the date merchandising chooses
  6. Targetwho or what they must moveMisreadDriftsTouchedRead asIlse, who has asked to see it two weeks earlier

Warren reads an interest as his agenda. Touched: interest. Read as: agenda. Ilse asked only to see the pricing calendar two weeks earlier. Warren resists as if he could not recover: he goes to the chief executive and proposes that e-commerce report to merchandising.The mover reads an agenda as an interest. Touched: agenda. Read as: interest. Had Ilse asked for a seat on the committee as if it were a small change, she would have expected bargaining. Warren's full resistance would then have looked out of all proportion to her move.

The misreading also runs the other way. A move that does threaten someone's agenda can be treated, by the person making it, as an ordinary disagreement over an interest, and the other side's response then looks out of all proportion to the move. Either way, a reaction far larger than the move that set it off is a cue to ask which layer the other person thinks the move touched, and to work out, before the next move, how to show them which layer it was aimed at.