Jul 21, 2026 · 21 min · 12 segments
Strategic planning can feel overwhelming when you try to do it all on your own. In this episode, Melissa explains why law firm owners often get stuck and how having the right partner or support can…
Melissa ShanahanHost
John Sweller's cognitive load theory, which is established widely cited research, tells us that when your brain is running two demanding processes at once, both suffer.
Research on task switching proves that every time you flip between two different purposes in the same setting, your brain gets stuck in the muck of switching.
You arrive at answers more slowly, less clearly, and with less confidence in what you found through the process.
That's what's happening when you try to be the one running the process and the one whose brain the process is meant to unlock.
Because, and you may not really understand this, people throw the word strategic planning around quite a bit.
Strategic planning done right is a process with steps, with assets being built, with data being organized, with truth being surfaced along the way.
And every single step of that process requires you to show up as a full participant.
But when you are doing the deep work of creating strategic clarity, when you are setting out to understand where your firm actually is, and where it needs to go, where you want it to go, while simultaneously being the person that the work is meant to serve, you don't get to be that participant.
And if you're not fully in that seat, in the participant seat, because you're spreading yourself among trying to facilitate everything as well, and you're trying to lead it, you will not get the outcome you should get.
John Sweller's cognitive load theory, which is established widely cited research, tells us that when your brain is running two demanding processes at once, both suffer.
Research on task switching proves that every time you flip between two different purposes in the same setting, your brain gets stuck in the muck of switching.
You arrive at answers more slowly, less clearly, and with less confidence in what you found through the process.
That's what's happening when you try to be the one running the process and the one whose brain the process is meant to unlock.
Because, and you may not really understand this, people throw the word strategic planning around quite a bit.
Strategic planning done right is a process with steps, with assets being built, with data being organized, with truth being surfaced along the way.
And every single step of that process requires you to show up as a full participant.
But when you are doing the deep work of creating strategic clarity, when you are setting out to understand where your firm actually is, and where it needs to go, where you want it to go, while simultaneously being the person that the work is meant to serve, you don't get to be that participant.
And if you're not fully in that seat, in the participant seat, because you're spreading yourself among trying to facilitate everything as well, and you're trying to lead it, you will not get the outcome you should get.
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