Tag Archives: planning

Time of Year for Planning

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“In the beginning, your purpose doesn’t have to grab everybody,” I started. “It just has to grab you. It helps you set the course.”

Riley was pensive. “I took over from my father. His purpose served the company well until he passed. The company’s culture was built on it. But things are different, now. It’s not like we sell vinyl records, though that is making a niche comeback. The market is not as interested in our product offering. It is still a voracious market, but it looks in a different direction.”

“Markets drive everything,” I nodded. “When your father started his small company, he did not know if it would work. At the time, he had little access to market research. He based his assumptions on intuition and those first sales. If he was lucky, there would be enough sales to cover his costs. The bank would not loan him any money, so he had to develop his product within his own means and its meager cash flow.”

“I know the stories,” Riley remembered. “And, all of his profit went right back into the company to hire more people and buy more equipment. He took a second mortgage on the house, and mom had to co-sign the note. But, he made it.”

“And, did well,” I smiled. “But markets change. Sometimes markets want incremental improvement, but sometimes markets want a seismic shift. You are somewhere in between.”

“I can see the shift, already,” she said. “I can read the market chatter and see the little startups that take some of our customers. I want to change, but, I am not sure which direction to take.”

“It’s an age old dilemma,” I replied. “Many people think that resistance to change is a matter of will. Most have the willingness to change, it is more a matter of how.”

“Is it a skill?” Riley asked. “Is there a series of questions, or a series of problems that must be solved?”

“If it was a series of problems, what would be the first problem? And, don’t give me some general notion, but think in terms of a problem statement.”

“In what way can we determine the shift in our market needs to better create a product that responds to that need?”

“That’s a good start,” I encouraged. “Here are some other questions you might consider.

  • Who is in our market?
  • How do we find out what our market is struggling with, related to our current product?
  • How do we prototype emerging products to meet that struggle?
  • How do we maintain our current product long enough to create the cash to fund emerging products?
  • How do we measure the ability of emerging products, even small variations, to capture new market interest?
  • How do we manage the risk of failure in our experimentation?
  • How do we maintain morale in our workforce in the face of inevitable failures?
  • How do we learn from our failures, fast enough, to continue innovation?

There are answers to these questions, but first, you have to ask the questions.”

Bright Ideas, Insufficient

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“I thought my promotion to manager was to become better at directing people to get work done,” Roberta said. “You make it seem like there should be more focus on the team than on me. I thought I had to have the answers, the solutions?”

“You might have answers and your answers may be the most coherent. You might have solutions and your solutions may be the ones that save the day,” I replied. “But, it is not your answers, your solutions, your planning, your bright ideas that make the difference. It’s execution. I am also certain that you have high performance standards, and you would meet those performance standards if you could self-perform each step in the process. Yet, you have come to realize that successful initiatives are seldom accomplished by a single person, it takes a team. It’s not the idea harbored by a single individual, it’s the coordinated execution that transforms a dispirited group into a cohesive team.”

Time Management

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“Jerome, by that look on your face, you seem a bit overwhelmed,” I observed.

“Is it that obvious?” he said, then looked around. “I guess you can see by the stacks of stuff on my desk that I am a bit unorganized.”

“That, and the scared look on your face,” I replied.

“I just, I just don’t seem to have enough time to get everything done,” he stammered apologetically. “I guess I need a course in time management.”

“Jerome, time cannot be managed. We can only manage ourselves in relation to time. So, you don’t need a course in time management, you need a course in self management. Look around your desk, at all the stacks, where is your focus, where is your attention?”

“I guess it’s all over the place,” Jerome surmised.

“Don’t guess, be deliberate. You see, you don’t have enough time, because you are all over the place. If you could determine your focus, the best place to focus your attention, you would have all the time to plan, to organize and determine next steps. If you are focused on the right thing, the right purpose, you will know in a nanosecond what needs to be done and what needs to be discarded. If you don’t have a focus, if everything has your attention, then you will probably have to carry around an organizer.”

The Measure of Performance

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“I don’t know what happened,” Bella said out loud. “We met, we planned, everyone had their role, we all committed with the best of intentions.”

“And?” I asked.

“And, the project failed,” she replied. “I mean, I have to give the team an A for effort, but at the end of the day, the project fell short, the customer was disappointed and we lost the rest of the contract.”

“So, you learned a valuable lesson,” I nodded.

“Yeah, what’s that?” Bella pushed back.

“That, of all the things we do, all of our planning, all of our training, all of our meetings, the only thing that matters is performance,” I said. “The best measure of performance is not a spectacular plan, or lofty intentions. The only measure of performance is performance.”

Controlling the Future

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“We have the forecast,” Samuel said. “All on a spreadsheet. We know what we need to sell by the end of this quarter.”

I looked up, smiled. “Do you mean, you know what you hope for? Do you mean, based on your explanation for the shortfall last quarter? Or is this just a guess?”

“Well, none of those. It’s just what we believe the CEO would be happy with,” Samuel explained.

“It’s nice to have an agreed upon target,” I surmised, “but do you think it will just happen from the number on the sheet or are you going to make it happen? Do you think you have the power to intervene on what will happen?”

“We are going to try,” Samuel looked determined.

“What will happen, will happen,” I replied. “Are you prepared to intervene in what will happen?”

“I told you, we will put in our best effort.”

“And, what if your current best effort isn’t good enough? Are you prepared? Look, your forecast is a target, not a predictor. We don’t know what is going to happen, nor do we control it. We don’t control what customers do. We don’t control what our competitors do. We don’t control how our supply chain performs. The only thing we can do is to prepare for whatever may happen. So, when it does, and it will, we are prepared. What does that preparation look like?”

Do What Is Expected

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Gillian had a smile on her face. “I think I finally have the right team. Everything is working smoothly. And every team member has the competence to do what it is expected. What more could I want?”

“Dangerous to ask me an open-ended question,” I replied. “Do you feel prepared? Do they have the skills? Not to do what is expected, but to grapple with the unexpected?”

Be Prepared

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“My boss tells me I need to have a plan for next year,” Joseph complained. “I don’t know why he thinks it is so important. All the plans we have ever published are out of date within 60 days. Maybe some targets are still in place to mark progress, but the rest of it gets chucked.”

“You are correct,” I replied. “And so is your boss. The plan is just a work product of a process. And, it’s the process that is critical, not the work product.”

“So, we sit down and imagine what things we could tackle, what problems might come up,” he said. “In the course of events, some things come true and some don’t. What’s the point? When they happen, if they happen, we will just deal with it.”

“What if you are not prepared to deal with it?” I nodded. “One characteristic of competence is the ability to constructively imagine into the future, anticipate those opportunities that could be leveraged, identify things that could go wrong, the forces that might work against you. And, be prepared. The competent housepainter carries extra paint brushes. The competent plumber carries extra tools and common supplies, even it’s not on the work order. The competent teacher steps into the classroom with a lesson plan. The competent driver starts out with a full tank of gas, even if the trip is only 100 miles. The competent manager builds a team with capacity and cross training.”

“When I was a kid in the Boy Scouts, our motto was Be Prepared. Do you mean like that?” Joseph asked.

“It is one of the first things I look for in an individual, related to competence.”

Call to Adventure

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“We finished the year in fine form,” Yolanda announced. “We met all of our goals with some to spare”.

“Good, now what?” I asked.

“We’re going to have a party,” she smiled.

“Yes, and then what?” I pressed.

You’re never happy, are you?” Yolanda pushed back. “I know where you are going with this.”

“Arriving at your destination is the end, and it is fine to celebrate the mark. But what is your journey? What’s next? That is the call to adventure.”

Multiple Paths

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“Stop with the frantic heroic efforts,” I said. “That is supervisor strategy. You’re a manager, now. Your strategy is a system focus. Stop working harder and longer and start working smarter. How can you see the work as a system?”

“You mean starting with when we get the work order from sales?” Paula wanted to know.

“That’s the way your team sees the work,” I disagreed. “As the manager, you have a larger scope than the team. You know the work starts way before the team gets it. The work starts back in sales, informal discussions about unsigned contracts in the hopper. Your system has to account for all the anticipated work volume AND the unanticipated variability in the work volume.”

“I can sit in on the sales meeting and get some visibility on projects in the works,” Paula nodded. “But, then what happens when the project gets delayed or completely scuttled?”

“Variability means variable,” I replied. “As the manager, you have to make contingency plans, multiple paths to the goal, anticipate what might happen and be ready to call an audible. A system not only has to account for the same characteristics of every project, but also has to account for the individual nuances that are different about every project.”

What Holds You Hostage?

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“You can either work on the plan the Board expects, and will not object to, or you can think differently about a new destination that is more important,” I said.

“But, I operate at the pleasure of the Board,” Kylie objected. “They write my paycheck. They expect solid quarterly results. I cannot turn in a plan based on a whim.”

“Then, your thinking has to be more than a whim,” I prodded. “Until then, you are hostage to the normal, predictable expectations that makes your Board comfortable. And, when they are comfortable, you are comfortable, and nothing remarkable will be accomplished.”

“Thinking this way sounds dangerous, a bit risky. If I do what you suggest, the Board might reject my plan and me along with it.”

“Then, you will no longer be a hostage,” I nodded.

“I might also be without a job,” Kylie appeared nervous.

“Think about this question,” I countered. “What moves would you have to make to double the revenues in your company in the next 12 months?”

“That would be impossible,” Kylie pushed back.

“Maybe, maybe not. The point is not to double your revenue, but to examine the moves you might make to do it. What might you explore?”