How Planning Can Really Help your Senior Leadership Team
To plan: to arrange a method or scheme beforehand for (any work, enterprise, or proceeding):
Sounds like too much work, sounds boring, sounds slow. Let’s just get on with the show…..that’s what most entrepreneurs say. You’d be surprised how many people actually run small businesses without a written plan. For instance, he was good at auto body work, and the next thing you heard, he had 12 employees and bought a location and you saw his advertisements on tv! WOW, his company must be doing well. Maybe not. Maybe he just bought himself a very expensive job, and is supporting many additional families in the meantime.
Therein lies the rub. It’s the E-Myth again. (Why most small businesses don’t work.) I really can’t blame small business owners. I am one. It’s hard sometimes for me to sit and discipline myself to do the planning and measuring and analyzing. I’d ten times rather be out face to face with a client working on solving a big, hairy issue that’s leaking revenue.
For a non-analytical person, it is sometimes just plain tortuous to sit still long enough to plan. I daresay, some business owners spend more time planning their vacations than how they are going to grow their business in the next 3 years. (which could explain why so many businesses with fewer than 500 employees will go bankrupt. http://tinyurl.com/m7ufks
You absolutely HAVE to have a business plan before you start any kind of business, and you absolutely have to have a written plan for any project you undertake as the project manager, just as the symphony conductor needs the musical score to do his job. But for most of us, it’s just not that fun. And for solo-preneurs, this is often where they get stuck and stop growing. They can start with a few bucks, a smile, their gifts, talents and the one big idea. They start to get too busy to handle everything themselves, and can’t seem to make the jump to the next level without it crippling them, since the next level often involves hiring, borrowing money, putting structure in place, learning how to measure and report to financiers, and really pulling away from what they love to do, to learn how to manage their business in a professional manner. They don’t want to be stuck in the office. That’s not why they started this whole thing.
• Okay, so what’s my point and why am I talking about this when my clients are mostly corporate senior executives and non-profits earning annual revenues of 10 million and 20 billion?
Here’s why:
• Because the same issues that stop entrepreneurs in the development of their small businesses stop your senior leaders from getting to their next level of leadership:
1. the discipline needed to pull themselves away from the daily rat race long enough to plan their next campaign/project.
2. an honest look at their own personal skillset and where it may need strengthening in order for them to succeed to the next level.
3. it’s easier to hang on to status quo, continue to do what they like and they are good at and “ignore” issues of growth, discomfort, discipline, and areas that may shine a light on their weak spots.
What to do about it? Here is a back-of-the-napkin approach to a written plan for your next move, whether it be a 90-day plan, a 3-year plan, or just a problem you can’t see your way around:
- Review your Vision.
- Review and write down your three most important personal values, and any company values not included in your own personal ones.
- Review your personal mission statement and your company mission statement, and the mission of the endeavor. All of the above 1-3 need to be in alignment. If there is a conflict anywhere, you need to talk with the right people to get that hammered out. Conflicts of purpose cause serious dysfunction and will create big problems down the road.
- Sketch out your basic strategy. Be sure the strategy is in alignment with your mission, values, and vision.
- Now make your action plan and lay out your tactics. Make sure your budget, and any needed systems are in place to support your plan so some piece of it doesn’t fall apart. List what you will need that is not in place, and then run the plan by two or three people you can trust to see what you may be overlooking. Make sure your team has some say and ownership of the plan, or that you can be sure to get their buy-in, so you are not sabotaged later.
- Put in place the disciplines that are needed. As Jim Rohn said many years ago, “What did you do tomorrow to make this happen?”
• Planning is critical but it doesn’t have to be a 493-page publication. If you are a bottom-liner like me, simply do these steps using the napkin approach, and once you are in motion, have an analytical person review it, format it, and prove to you why it won’t work.
Tags: Business Coach, business coaching, Business Planning, entrepreneur success, Executive Coach, executive coaching, executive planning, Leadership Development, planning, Senior Leadership
