Category Archives: Planning Skills

Into the Abyss

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They just could not see it. Plain as day to Michelle, the team was having difficulty. She had pointed to the mountain top, but the team was having trouble seeing through the clouds. Hell, they weren’t even looking up. They were looking straight down at the cliff before their feet, straight down into certain failure.

“No, no!!! Look up. Don’t you see it?” cried Michelle.

“No, Michelle, look down. You want us to step off this cliff into the dark abyss. Other Managers have tried this on us before and it always turned out bad. Go ahead, look up at the mountain, but the reality is much worse down here, before we even get to the foothills of that mountain you are looking at.”

Of course, the top of the mountain looks great to the Manager. The Manager can see past all the near term trouble it will take to get there. The Manager can see the long term reward in climbing to the top. The team, however, has a shorter time horizon. They cannot see that far into the future, all they see is that near term trouble. They know they will fail and get blamed for the failure.

That’s why we have to front load rewards on long term projects. Sometimes, those front load incentives seem out of whack with the minimal progress in the first few moments, but it may take that, to gain compliance from the team. They have to suffer through operational changes, learning new skills, short term failure. It stinks. So, front load the incentives to get through it. They will eventually get to the top and understand the longer term reward.

Then, you can point to the next mountain. -TF

Drama of Ideas

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The scissors and glue were stacked on top of the poster board, the furtive glances around the table showed an attitude of disbelief. Sitting in coats and ties, proper business attire, the assignment seemed curiously odd.

“Working in teams of three, you have two months to prepare a visual display and make a five minute presentation of what this company will look like in the marketplace five years from now. You are encouraged to lift articles from magazines, the internet, draw diagrams, take pictures, and create graphs. Those who use music in their presentation will be eligible for extra credit.”

During the past two annual planning meetings, we had struggled to extend our discussions beyond a 12 month time frame. There had always been lip service to the future, but no grit to the conversation.

Two months later, three stand-up poster board presentations were made that explored the probabilities of the industry, trends occurring with competitors and the influence of world economies. This was just the start of the dialogue, but we had managed over the hump of time travel and truly made it into the future. The leverage point was dramatizing the ideas.

Does your team get stuck in their own logic, unable to break out? Dramatize your ideas. It may be the turning point. -TF

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Dogs Are Never Late

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Goals are a curiously human phenomenon. Did you ever notice that dogs are never late? Dogs never miss a deadline. Goals create the second dimension of time, the dimension of intention.

I spend time with runners, people who casually run and people who seem particularly driven to run. Something curious occurs when a runner decides to enter a race. Most of the field knows they will NOT be among the place finishers, yet there is a definite change in behavior. Casual morning runs become certain distances. Times are recorded in training logs. The runs are counted, the days until race day are counted. The goal drives behavior.

How do you keep your goals visible? Often, I suggest something visual, a compelling description, a drawing or a photograph. With computer scanners and printers, you can make multiple copies and post them in several places, your bathroom mirror, your refrigerator, on your desk, the dashboard of your car. You can imagine that I have a photograph of a bicycle on my desk with a yellow sticky note that says “Buy now.”

Goals drive behavior, can you see yours? -TF

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Focus or Not

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There were twelve incredible opportunities staring at Roger, all of them saying, “Pick me!”

Once an organization gets some traction in their market, over the hump of cash flow and all that, the next biggest trap is the incredible opportunities.

As your company grew, everyone said, “You’ll never make it,” but your company did. Who is to say that your company cannot be successful at all of the other opportunities staring down at you?

Sometimes, the most important decisions that you make, are the decisions about what not to do. The growing organization needs to focus its efforts on becoming more successful at their core business. There will be plenty of time, later, to chase down that incredible restaurant deal or that mail order pharmacy company.

Disciplined focus, execution, not opportunities. Stay out of the trap. -TF

Fast-Brain “Storming”

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We had twenty minutes to complete the assignment. Go!

Our job was to document 180 discreet operational steps in a manufacturing process, placing each step in an approximate sequence. We had nine volunteer managers from each of the operating areas.

Step One: We distributed little 3×3 sticky note pads to each manager, along with one of those bold felt tip marking pens. 19 minutes. Go!

Instructions to the Manager group: On separate sticky notes, please write down the key words describing the most important operational steps in your area. Please select the twenty most important (major) steps in your area. Ten minutes from now, when you are finished, you should have twenty separate sticky notes, each with an important step written on it. Any questions? Go!

While the managers prepared their sticky notes, we taped 27 feet of 36 inch wide butcher paper on the wall. Double thickness, in case someone wanted to write on it (save the wall). We lightly marked and divided the butcher paper into nine sections, one for each person.

Time’s up. Please take your 20 sticky notes to the butcher paper. Arrange yourselves in the same sequence as your areas on the floor. Stick your notes on the paper and place them in the sequence that work is performed in your area. You may draw appropriate arrows and make appropriate notes on the butcher paper to further clarify your operational steps. You have five minutes. Go!

Team, we still have 3 minutes left before our twenty minutes expire. There is coffee available on the table at the back of the room. Thank you very much for your cooperation today.

Now, what could you do with a flow chart like that, documenting your work flow? -TF

Visualization and the Budget

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How do we know when we will run out of money? That’s what budgets are for. What is this budgeting process all about? How do you teach someone how to budget? How do we create comprehensive budgets for something in the future?

Strip all the accounting jargon away, and you find that a budget is, simply, the money part of every business plan. The first step in planning is visualization, seeing into the future and imagining the resources required. Working with my students, I insist that their visualizations include colorful detail, the smell of the room, the focus of light, the heat of the moment. When the vision of a project can be described in vivid, compelling terms, the job of imagining the budget becomes so much easier. How do I teach people to budget? I teach them to visualize the future and imagine the resources required to create the picture. You can do this individually or with your team.

The second step of any business plan is taking inventory (not literal inventory), but reviewing the historical elements that got you to the present. Prior projects often have “budgeted” costs and always have “actual” costs. Reviewing these historical reports combined with that clear picture of the future will create a budget with fewer surprises. -TF

Vision & Motivation

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When I was training for a marathon (at the ripe age of 39), Thursday morning would arrive at 3:30. The alarm clock would ring and I had a decision to make. I could throw it against the wall and return to my slumber, or I could put on my shoes and head out the door.

At 3:31am, I put together the connection between vision and motivation.

The goal was clear, 16 miles, in the cold. But for some reason, that goal did not get me going. In fact, the only thing that got me out of bed was my vision. My vision was a movie-like first-place finish breaking the tape, wind in my hair, looking sharp in my fancy running togs. It was only that clear and compelling vision that got my feet on the floor.

Here is the truth. Your team doesn’t care about your goals. They are not exciting. The only tool you have, as a manager, to get your team juiced up, is a clear and compelling vision of the future. A vision complete with vibrant color, exciting sounds and the smell of success. It is a description of the details that breathe life into a project. Vision is where enthusiasm lives, energy, drive and inspiration.

So, think about your recent projects.

  • When they were planned, what picture did you paint for your team?
  • Could they see it?
  • How excited were they about your picture of the future?
  • How did that project go, anyway?

If you want to make it better, if you want your team to become engaged, paint a better picture. Better yet, get your team to help you paint the picture. –TF

Vision & Autopilot

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The first step in the planning process is to create a clear and compelling picture of the future. Most planning models describe this step as “Vision.” But, why? Why is this step the first step and why is it so important to the planning process?

Most times, when a group jumps into planning, I see them assemble around a table and immediately begin to set goals. True, goals are an important part of the planning process, but if that is their first step, the group is in big trouble down the road. Without a defined vision, the liklihood of ANY goal be in alignment with their assumed vision is very remote.

Planning starts with a clear and compelling picture of the future. Once that picture is defined (in all of its warmth and fuzziness), goals can then be set that make some sense. But why else? Why is vision so important to the planning process?

I am not a golfer, but I am told that the most important thing that Tiger Woods, or Jack Nicklaus does, prior to any swing, is visualize the ball launching from the tee and traveling through the air, onto the green and into the hole. All modern sports now employ visualization into their coaching processes. Why? Visualization is powerful because it uses the right side of the brain to assist in muscle control, timing, stance, sequence and weight position. When the left side of the brain (the logical side) tries to assist with muscle control, timing, stance, sequence and weight position, it is actually counterproductive. The more a golfer thinks about their stance and how they hold their hands, the worse they actually do. Visualization works without words, to engage the right side of the brain, to put the body on autopilot to grip the club, control the backswing, launching the ball straight down the fairway, without conscious thought.

Vision, in planning, works to put a hundred small processes on autopilot. A team can collectively create a clear and compelling vision full of the hundred details that make a project successful. These hundred details might never make the light of a checklist, but on autopilot, they are the part and parcel of a project “gone right.” –TF