From the Ask Tom mailbag:

Question:

A couple of weeks ago, in Execute Like a Dictator, you make a quick reference, (BTW, you cannot be the dictator). What did you mean by that?

Response:

In his book Driving Force, Peter Schutz, the former CEO of Porshe uses an analogy to contrast the difference between planning (democracy) and implementation (dictatorship).

Implementation as dictatorship is captured by his story of Raceday. In the pits, there is no discussion of 401-k plans, or office holidays or the quality of food in the company cafeteria. On Raceday, there is only pure focus on replacing the worn tires, refueling the tank and getting that car back out on the track. As the CEO of Porshe, Peter had the pleasure (and the pit pass) to be close to the action.

On one occasion, there was a bit of confusion and the pit leader screamed at him, “Hey, you, go get (something that Peter described as heavy and dirty).” There was no discussion, this was a dictatorship. Peter scurried away and fetched the dirty, heavy object back to the side of the race car.

This system of implementation on Raceday (as a dictatorship) is required. It is the only way to be competitive. There can be no time for discussion, generating alternatives, being sensitive to feelings. It is Raceday and to win the race, their execution had to be flawless.

But notice that the CEO was NOT the dictator. Yes, there was someone barking direct orders, but it was the crew leader who was the dictator. During the planning stages, in preparation for Raceday, the crew duly selected someone to be their leader for the day. In their planning, they agreed that person would coordinate their efforts and they would, without question, comply with their full efforts.

So, as the manager in your organization, you may find implementation, to be competitive, must be like a dictatorship. You may also find yourself fetching something heavy and dirty. -TF

Sylvia was stumped. I knew she was working on her 2007 Business Plan. On her desk was a lonely legal pad of paper. There was not a single thing written.

“How’s it going?” I asked.

I got one of those lizard eye looks.

“Stuck?” I followed up.

“You know we are all working on our Business Plans for next year. I know what I want to say, but I don’t know where to start.”

“Would you like a planning template that can help you organize your thoughts and goals?”

Her head shook affirmative.
—
If you would like a copy of my 2007 Business Plan template, just follow this link to the website. On the right side, under my picture is a menu choice called Planning Template. From there you can download it. The file is written in Microsoft Word, so you can enter your own narrative. The third page is for goals, both business and personal. This page works not only to describe the goal, but acts as a tracking tool throughout the year.

If you have any questions, just ask. I have been using this planning tool for the past eleven years with companies of all sizes. The template works just as well for departmental planning.

Miriam creeped into the conference so as not to disturb the rest of the meeting. Everyone was working hard on their business plan for 2007. “I’m having a bit of trouble,” she said. “I know all the steps for the plan, but I am just stuck.”

“And step one is what?” I asked. We were working with a structured planning model.

“Step one is to create the vision for my department. And that was easy. I think I got it all captured in a couple of sentences. It’s the rest of the plan that I am having difficulty with.”

“Interesting,” I replied, “that you can capture that much detail in two sentences.”

“Well, you are right,” Miriam confessed. “There isn’t a lot of detail, but I thought it would be better if it was short.”

“Miriam, here is the way the vision part of the plan works. The more detailed it is, the clearer the images are, the easier it is to write the rest of the plan. Instead of two sentences, write two pages. I want to know who your customers are and what services you provide. You probably have more than one customer segment, tell me how they are different and how your services to each are different? Tell me what position you hold in the marketplace, what your market share is? Who are your competitors? Tell me what your competitive advantage is, what are your core competencies? Who are your key personnel, how do you find them, how do you grow them? Tell me about your facilities, your plant? How do you control quality? How do you guarantee performance?”

Miriam left the room with a bit of thinking to do. A couple of days later, I read her vision statement. It contained all the detail we talked about and more. The plan that followed was clear and detailed, all driven by a carefully constructed word picture of the future.

The first step in the plan is vision. -TF

“But, I thought, to do planning, the first step was to create some goals?” asked Nicole. “That’s what we have always done.”

I nodded. “That’s where most people start. And goals are important.” I stopped. “And, how do we make sure we are going after the right goals? And how do we make sure the targets are set high enough?”

“Well, we have to have a good idea of where we are going,” Nicole replied.

“Exactly, and that is what we have to define first.”

Nicole winced. “How do we do that?”

“There are a number of ways. We could take a picture, draw a picture, describe a picture of where we are going?”

“What do you mean?”

“One of my clients, Banyan Air Services at Fort Lauderdale Executive Airport just finished a brand new terminal building, something, as a team, they have been working toward as long as I have known them. For years, hanging on the wall, there was an artist’s rendering of their new building. That was it. That was the vision. And everyone who walked by or sat in that office knew precisely where the company was headed.

“Year after year, without wavering, that picture stood inside the heads of the management team. It drove them to perform with that single thought in mind. Two weeks ago, they had their grand opening. It is amazing how that single visual picture drove their thinking, their performance, their goals for well over a decade.

“The first step in planning is vision.” -TF

“So, we can put this plan to bed?” said Ross. His team had worked hard and done a pretty good job.

“Ross, let’s say you think this plan is the perfect plan. How will you know this is the perfect plan?”

“Since this is the plan for 2007, I guess we won’t know until the end of 2007.”

“So, you are going to wait until the end of 2007 to make sure you know you are still on the right track?” I asked.

“Well, of course not. That would be stupid,” said Ross. We will be looking at the plan all through the year.”

“When will you look at the plan again?” I asked. “Ross, every company has grand intentions to look at their plan through the year, but quite frankly, most companies don’t do it.”

“Well, I am sure we will look at it again,” Ross stated firmly.

“Well, I am sure that you won’t,” I replied. “Unless.” I stopped.

“Unless what?” Ross asked.

“Unless, at the end of each calendar quarter, you schedule a full day with your management team, fully focused, perhaps off-site, to revisit your plan from top to bottom.”

Ross was a quick study. He was already reaching for his calendar. -TF

“Nice plan, well-thought out. Conceptually, it makes a lot of sense. What’s next?”

I spend a lot of time at this point in the year, helping companies develop their 2007 business plan. There is no magic to the process. I use a simple model that we teach in our management program.

“What’s next?” I ask again. Ross was thinking. “In what way could you make this plan more effective?”

Finally, Ross spoke up. “Well, we have done a pretty good job of talking about what we want to accomplish, but we haven’t said much about how we are going to do it.”

“So, what might you add to this plan?”

“Action steps?”

“Exactly, it’s all well and good to establish your goals, but you also have to have an action plan. A plan without action just sits on the shelf gathering dust. In fact, that’s what happens with most strategic plans, they just sit there.”

“So, where do we start?” asked Ross.

“At the beginning, of course. That’s why I asked, –what’s next-? Whenever I look at a strategic plan, I always want to know what the next steps are. Next steps convert the plan into action.” -TF

“Hey, you! They didn’t care who I was.” Peter explained. I was talking with Peter Schutz, former CEO of Porsche (1980-1988) about car racing. But Peter’s stories always have a point.

Standing in the pit, as the car would come in for fuel and tires, there was no pleasant conversation. All energy was focused on the flawless execution of the fundamentals. They had mere seconds to get the racecar out of the pit and back on to the track.

“Can you imagine,” Peter explained, “what would have happened if the guy working on the left rear tire had pulled the wheel, set it on the ground and then started a conversation. -You know guys, I have been thinking about a few things that I would like to bring up to the group.-”

Peter continued to explain that winning the race depended on the dynamics of a rather stern dictatorship. “How is that possible?” Peter asked. The answer was simple. They could operate like a dictatorship in the pit, in the heat of the moment, because they had spent months planning very democratically.

Execute like a dictatorship, plan democratically.

“The problem in business,” Peter said, “is that most managers get this exactly backward.” -TF

You can get Peter’s book Driving Force on Amazon.com.