Planning for Possibilities: A Perspective-Shifting Practice

What if you could quiet the ‘what-ifs’ and help your team face tough decisions with clarity and confidence? 

Today, we’re sharing a simple scenario planning practice that brings perspective to uncertainty-so you can plan for whatever comes next.

Coral and Jessica introduce a practical scenario planning tool: Best, Worst, Most Likely Case. Learn how this perspective-shifting practice, rooted in positive psychology, can help you and your group break out of catastrophizing, validate hopes and fears, and make grounded plans for the future. 

Jessica walks you through the steps, shares tips for brainstorming, and explains how focusing on what’s most likely can unify your team and boost decision-making. 

Whether you’re facing a big decision or just want to build resilience, this episode will help you put uncertainty in perspective.

Resources to help you run a group brainstorm:

"1-2-4-All"

"Brainwriting"

Transcript

CORAL OWEN: [00:00:00] Hey everyone, Coral here. Thanks for listening to the Practicing Connection Podcast. My co-host, Jessica, is here today as well, and today we're going to be talking about scenario planning, and Jessica's gonna share a practice with us. Jessica, how are you today? 

JESSICA BECKENDORF: Hey, Coral, I'm doing well. I have my dog by my side and a comfortable chair. I'm pretty content right now. I just got one of those chairs where you can sit cross-legged on them, and that's pretty comfortable. 

It's also been like a season of learning for me, like the last month, I don't know, the weather gets good, for some reason in the spring I like to find classes to take online, and then of course I often don't finish them because I get busy in the summer.

But lately I've been digging into a full stack web development course just for fun. Yeah. We'll see what comes next.

CORAL OWEN: I love that. I've been actually doing a little bit of just reading for fun [00:01:00] recently, finding a little bit more space just to unplug actually from the learning, constant learning, and a little bit more just, you know, book consumption just for the sheer pleasure of literature, so that's great. 

Yeah, it's been a few years since I've had just the brain bandwidth, actually the space in life to do that. So it's so nice just to relax with a good book in the afternoon for a few minutes and a few pages and just let my brain decompress. So it's good stuff. 

We would love to hear what you all are learning, what's inspiring you, and if you'd care to share what's inspiring you, you can click send us a message at the top of the description of this episode.

And when you click the link, your text messaging app will open and you'll see a seven digit number in the words “Do not remove.” Just type your message after that and click send. If you're listening on the computer, you can instead email [00:02:00] us at practicingconnection@oneop.org. So we'd love to hear what's inspiring you at this time.

- break -

CORAL OWEN: All right, so today we are going to be learning about scenario planning and kind of a perspective shifting practice. Jessica, can you tell us a bit more about this practice that you'll be sharing today, and also why you chose it?

JESSICA BECKENDORF: Yeah, I really love this practice. I have used it a whole bunch of times, both individually on my own to think through a process, which I'll explain in a second, and then also with groups. 

It's actually called, I guess officially, put it into perspective, though when I've used it in scenario planning with groups, I've just simply called it, “best, worst, and most likely case.” I can't actually recall the first time I learned of this practice, 'cause I've been using it for a long time.

But I'm almost [00:03:00] positive I learned about this practice from some of my readings on character strengths. And if that's the case, it makes sense because when I dug in to try to remember where I got this practice from. Martin Seligman from the University of Pennsylvania's Positive Psychology Center has been credited with this activity as it relates to the context of applying it to our personal wellbeing and reducing catastrophizing.

And that's actually a really great use of this activity, and I've used it myself for this. When we start to spiral and catastrophize, you can apply this by simply identifying the worst that could possibly happen, and then imagining the best case scenario, and then finally identifying what the most likely scenario might be, what might actually occur.

Then start planning for the most likely scenario, because there's a little bonus practice, 'cause that's not the full practice there.

CORAL OWEN: Oh my gosh. I just relate to that so, so much and know so many people that have a tendency to slide into that [00:04:00] “what ifs” spiral that you mentioned. I can't wait to hear more about this because yeah, just having like a parking break.

JESSICA BECKENDORF: Yeah.

CORAL OWEN: That you can pull - yeah.

JESSICA BECKENDORF: Yeah. And I think it's really easy to immediately assume that the worst is gonna happen. 

CORAL OWEN: Right, totally. 

JESSICA BECKENDORF: Well, so this practice, the one that I'm gonna be sharing with you is the one that I've used with groups. It works really well for groups and teams for scenario planning, which is just really how I've used it most often.

I really like to use it when there is a potentially contentious decision or a difficult issue to address. What I've experienced is that in meetings, this can have a unifying effect among the people that are in that meeting, spending the time identifying that worst case scenario. That's really about identifying fears surrounding the big decision or the difficult issue, and that ends up validating how everyone is feeling about the situation.

Then when you go [00:05:00] on to identify the best case scenario that affirms and aligns the group's hopes about the situation. And then finally, when you outline what's most likely to happen, given the information we have today, the known knowns. That has a calming and unifying effect on the group, and usually leaves them in a much better position to make a decision if a decision needs to be made.

At the very least, it helps everyone face fears and make plans to mitigate possible pain points. I always recommend that you focus on planning for the most likely scenario, but it doesn't hurt to also ask which of the things that contribute to that worst case scenario is the next most likely to happen, and then create a scenario plan for that as well.

CORAL OWEN: That sounds like a very thorough approach, but also very effective, awesome. Well, thanks so much for introducing that practice, Jessica. Can [00:06:00] you help us learn how to get started?

JESSICA BECKENDORF: Yeah, I'll go through it step by step. One thing I'll add before I share the steps is that depending on your team, you may wanna use different brainstorming methods.

Because essentially as you go through each of the steps, they're massive brainstorming activities. And you know, try to use a method that would resonate with your team versus the one you prefer. So for example, I love a verbal popcorn style brainstorm out loud. Everyone's saying their thoughts out loud. But a lot of people would prefer more of a think, pair, and share kind of process where you write down your ideas quietly on your own, and then you might pair up with one other person and share, and then maybe the two of you then share with the whole group.

Don't overthink it though. You can simply have a conversation with your team at a meeting as well. I'll include a few links to other ways of running a brainstorm in the show notes, just in case a new approach is just what you need. 

Now let's get to the steps of how to do this [00:07:00] practice. First, start the conversation with what could or might go wrong. So you're gonna work with your team to brainstorm and articulate everything that could go wrong. Use this brainstorm list then to articulate a worst case scenario. You may end up with more than one worst case scenario, depending on the variables for your situation. 

Then you're gonna move on to what would it look like if everything goes right?

Have your team define all of the hopes and possible moving pieces and parts that could go right. Use this brainstorm list to articulate a best case scenario. Or two, depending on your variables. 

And then finally, you're gonna brainstorm what might be the most likely scenario. Again, you might end up with more than one, most likely scenario, depending on your situation.

But you're gonna then use this list to begin to develop a plan for how you might address the most likely scenario. And then, like I said before, you [00:08:00] might want to take a look at the worst case scenario that you developed to see if it's enough of a concern that you need to come up with any backup plans.

And I would urge you and your team to always consider what's in your control. So what can you and your team do right now, and what's within your ability to influence? Those are the two areas that you can actually take action in. Try not to catastrophize and think well, “There's this big, looming shoe that's going to drop,” though you can't control that shoe and whether the shoe drops or not.

So focus on what's in your control and what's within your ability to influence when you're looking at planning for the most likely scenario. 

CORAL OWEN: That's wonderful advice. Thank you Jessica so much for sharing those steps with us today.

JESSICA BECKENDORF: You're very welcome. I have been there many times. Scenario planning is something that I've had to do quite a lot.

CORAL OWEN: Yeah, I'm sure that that's been such a big help for some of the teams that you've worked with, and [00:09:00] hopefully it'll help some teams that are listening in today. 

Well, that is it for today's episode. Thank you all so much for joining us. If you enjoyed today's episode, you can click the share button in your podcast app to share it with a friend or a colleague.

We'll be back next week with a new practice, and until then, keep practicing.

CREDITS: The Practicing Connection Podcast is a production of One-Off and is supported by the National Institute of Food and Agriculture, US Department of Agriculture and the Office of Military Family Readiness Policy, US Department of Defense under award number 2 0 2 3 4 8 7 74 3 3.