Tag Archives: planning

Things Change

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Krista had a sheepish look on her face when I asked to see her list of goals for the next three months.

“I don’t really have a list,” she said. “I mean, I know what I am supposed to do. I keep it in my head.”

“Then how do you organize your list, if you don’t have it written down? How do you share your goals with other people? How do you change and update them? Most importantly, how do you make decisions about goals?”

“Well, when I started this job, my manager explained things to me. I had a job description and I signed off on it. Is that what you mean?”

“How long ago was that?” I asked.

“About two and half years ago,” she replied.

“Your customers have changed, your market has changed, technology has changed, regulations in your industry have changed, your team has changed. Do mean that your goals have NOT changed in two and half years?”

What Could Go Wrong?

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Lonnie was working hard to change the way his team responded to problems on the manufacturing floor.

“I keep telling them that we need to be proactive,” he said. Lonnie wasn’t defensive, but you could tell he wasn’t having any fun.

“So, tell me what happens?” I asked.

Lonnie shook his head. “It’s just day after day. The problems jump up. You know, it’s not like we don’t have a clue. We know what problems customers are going to have. Heck, we even know which customers are going to call us. We just don’t ever get ahead of the curve.”

“Lonnie, being reactive is easy. It doesn’t require any advance thinking, or planning, or anticipating. Being reactive just happens. Being proactive, however, requires an enormous amount of conscious thinking. It doesn’t just happen. You have to make it happen. You have to make it happen by design. At the beginning of the day, I want you to gather your team together. Show them a list of the work you are doing for the day and for which customers. Then ask these two questions.

  • What could go wrong today?
  • What can we do to prevent that from going wrong?

Lonnie smiled. “That’s it?” he asked.

“That’s it.”

Translator Role

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The planning session was almost over. The team energy was pumped up. Well, all except for Audrey. Her expression was only remarkable in contrast to the upbeat tempo of the rest of the team.

“Audrey, what do you think?” I asked. She was startled, the question was unexpected.

“What do you mean?” she said.

“You are a senior member of this team. You have been around. We have been working on this plan for a couple of hours, what are we missing?”

Though Audrey had been thinking, she had not prepared herself to share these thoughts.

“You are right. I think we are missing a big step here,” she finally said. “I have seen plans like this fail before. Here. In this company. The plan sounds good. It is a worthy target, but we have to get there. We can get all excited, give stump speeches to all of our work groups, but until we translate.” She stopped. “Yes, that’s the word. Translate. We have to translate this plan into the things we do every day to make this happen. If we don’t figure that out, time will go by and we won’t see the progress we expect. We have to connect our everyday disciplines to this larger plan. If we don’t the plan will fail.”

Whose Plan?

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“You have a team meeting,” I describe. “Someone has to talk and it’s not you, because no one listens to you. So, who talks?”

“My team?” Gordon answered slowly.

“Yes,” I nodded. “You describe the essence of the vision and the performance Standards. The team sets out the action plan.”

“But my team may not know what steps to take and besides, it will take too long to get them all to agree,” Gordon protested.

I nodded and smiled. “I didn’t say that your team would get there quickly. Sometimes you have to go slow now, so you can go fast later. You need your team, involved, engaged, thinking, solving problems and making decisions. You are not going to get there by telling them what to do.”

Gordon was skeptical, “But, what if I am not getting what I want?”

“If you are not getting what you want, then you are asking the wrong questions.”

Willie Sutton Strategy

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Why did Willie Sutton rob banks? Legend says Willie robbed banks because that’s where the money was.

We’ve talked about strategy over the past couple of weeks because many of you are engaged in strategic planning. Successful companies bring their (right) product or service to the right market at the right time in the right way.

Strategic planning is not to create tactical goals for the following year, but to examine those external systems that will have an impact on your long-term success. Willie Sutton may lack moral turpitude, but he knew where the money was.

We Improvise

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“Not one plan, but four plans?” I wanted confirmation from Roberto.

He nodded. “I was in the Marines. We had a saying, ‘We don’t plan. We improvise.’ But, improvisation only works if you are prepared with a plan. What’s the first part of every plan?”

“Purpose,” I replied. “We all have intentions, mostly unspoken. A plan is created when intentions become a documented purpose.”

“Improvisation only works when there is a commonly agreed-to purpose,” Roberto continued. “Without a purpose, improvisation becomes chaos. The chaos may be interesting, but it accomplishes little. Purpose drives the next step.”

“Visualization,” I replied.

“Everyone on the team must agree to the purpose and hold a similar vision of what that future state looks like,” Roberto explained.

“How do we know the picture each holds is close to the same picture of their elbowed teammate?”

“Simple,” Roberto grinned. “They talk to each other. It’s a discussion. It is the necessary work of improvisation. When all hell breaks loose, we have to be prepared to make the micro-decisions of the moment, in concert. Serendipity doesn’t happen by random chance. Serendipity is all about our intentions.”

“And?”

“And only then can we create the mile markers to chart our progress, the goals, objectives of our micro-decisions. What looks like serendipity only occurs when we create the context of a plan in which to operate. It may appear we are winging it, but our actions require preparation to be effective toward our purpose.”

Scenario Planning

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“You had a pretty good year, last year,” I said. “What was your secret?”

“It was a solid plan, flawlessly executed,” Roberto flatly stated with a smile.

“I know that’s not true,” I replied. “I mean, I know you had a plan, but, that’s not what happened.”

Roberto’s smile turned into a grin. “Your observation is correct. We didn’t have a plan. We had four plans. We took the two largest variables that would impact our business and played them out in four quadrants. We played each variable up and each variable down in combination. At the time, what we thought would happen was very far from what actually happened. If we had not had three alternate scenarios, we would have been sunk.”

“And this next year?” I asked.

“Same. We thought we were finally getting back to normal, then Ukraine, protests in China and Iran, now a looming rail strike. You have to plan for contingencies, not just what you think will happen.”

A tip of the hat to Gideon Malherbe.

The Two Strategic Questions

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When I was in journalism, I was taught to answer the 4 “W”s. Who, what, where and when?

This is planning season and companies across the globe are asking those questions. The multi-day retreat is called strategic planning, but in most cases, it is tactical planning. Here are the questions again, only two are strategic.

  • Who?
  • What?
  • Where?
  • When?
  • How? (I know it doesn’t start with “W”)
  • Which?
  • Why?

The responses to the list are mostly tactical.

Given two or more choices (and there are always at least two choices), which choice fits our strategy? Given two or more choices, why would we choose one over another? Those are the strategic questions.

Fear and Hesitation

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“Let’s hear the self-talk,” I said.

Lucy began to describe her vision of the project as it would be completed. Her words were tentative. “When we finish the project, the new territory should be ours. The competitors will think twice about ignoring our expertise. The client should have a new-found respect for us.”

“Not bad, for starters,” I said. “I want you to try something different. Pretend the project is already finished. Close your eyes and visualize that we are one day beyond the project’s completion. Now open your eyes and describe it again.”

It took Lucy a moment for it to sink in. I could see her eyes blink hard as she moved her mind into the future. “We finished the project and the new territory is ours. The competitors cannot ignore our expertise in this marketplace. The client has a new-found respect for us.”

“Lucy, it is more than just confidence. What else is different when you talk like that?”

“When I transport myself into the future, all of the problems that get in the way and slow us down are gone. All of the hurdles have vanished.”

The power of visualization, to a real time in the future, works to conquer more than problems. It conquers the fear and hesitation of moving forward.

Timespan of Discretion

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“Your goal is to make it all happen according to your schedule?” I continued. “Sounds easy. Can’t you just make up a schedule and tell everyone they have to follow it?”

Taylor chuckled and shook his head. “I wish. No, my schedule has to meet the Contractor’s schedule and it has to mesh with all the sub-trades on the job. And most importantly, my schedule has to be tight enough to match the budget and man-hours in our original estimate. There are a thousand things that have to go right. By the way, we have 30 other projects that will happen during this same twenty two months.”

“So, let’s talk about the decisions that go along with your goal. Every role has decisions that must be made. That’s the work that must be done. Your effectiveness in managing this schedule depends on the decisions that you make. When I look at the Timespan of your goals, I also look at the Timespan of your decisions, your Timespan of Discretion.”