'Tis the season to do planning - falalalala, la la la la. Yes, it's almost budgeting time, which means that you need to have a plan in place to drive your budgeting process. (You DO plan before you budget, right?) You've ridden in this rodeo a zillion times, so you grab your easel and markers and lead the parade to the conference room....
Wait a minute. You're doing this yourself? Slow down, Buckaroo. It's a risky venture, for these 6 reasons:
- Your authority is an impediment to the team's ability to speak freely and surface issues. Yes, you probably have a great relationship with your team. Despite all that, they, however much they feel the love, never forget that you are the boss. They assume that you must have information that they do not have. Or they cannot let go of the certainty that you can fire them, and are willing to do so if crossed.
- You wear the company cultural goggles. The goggles consist of a whole set of assumptions that filter opportunities in or out. They prevent you from seeing certain issues that might be right in front of your nose, but that are invisible because you have grown accustomed to them. You are in the job you are in because you have been successful inside the company groove. Your plan has its greatest likelihood of big success when you take the company OUT of its groovy comfort zone. (What's the only difference between a groove and a grave? The depth.)
- This is not the best use of your (expensive) time. You're in the role you're in to grow the business, to smooth out operational wrinkles, to look to the trends in your industry and identify opportunities. If you don't invest time in preparing your process for planning, your process will take time and/or yield little quality output. If you do invest time in preparing for your planning (in addition to leading it), you're taking time away from your core functional responsibilities.
- You can't be in charge of the process and fully participate in developing the content for your plan. See #1 above. When a facilitator runs a planning process, he or she has to keep one eye on the clock, another on the deliverables to be developed, and the third eye (you know what I mean!) on the participants. There can be no quiet hold-outs who will later throw grenades at the plan. There can be no dominant parties - and that includes you - who bulldoze the group. And there is no editing allowed in the space between contributor and easel paper.
- The success of your plan depends wholly on execution. Do you have an effective process for that? This is the point where most plans fail - in the execution. There's a plan up in the ozone, and it doesn't ever completely reach the action on the ground. It isn't integrated into daily operations. Or the reverse happens - the plan is only for one year with no context around the long-term goals of the company's owners and stakeholders. With only a one-year operating plan, a company is more likely to whipsaw with current circumstances, making reactionary decisions responding to immediate perceived needs. The third execution-related challenge relates to any type of plan - when lack of accountability creates disillusionment with the once-shiny plan aspirations after a quarter or two.
- This is a year like no other - so your planning needs to account for that. Let's assume for a moment that your company is under some stress due to Covid-19. It may be that your business needs more than a tweak or a one-year solution to regain its feet. There may be some incredibly consequential decisions that need to be made. This is EXACTLY the time to bring in a third party who is trained in planning AND execution, and who has the tools to help you pull your planning team through. This is EXACTLY the time for someone to help your team (and you) challenge your assumptions and chart a new and better course given the new world in which we live.
ProActive Leadership Group consists of coaches with decades of field experience, C-suite backgrounds, and extensive training in processes and tools that can help your company flourish. Consider bringing in the pros to drive your planning and execution process. Your company's future may depend on it.
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