Good Leadership vs. Chronic FTI
There’s no sense in planning if you fail to implement
You’ve already completed your 2012 budget build and updated your business plan and marketing plan, right? If not, it’s time to get to work. This short article isn’t about business planning best practices. I do suggest having a life plan first and then a plan for your business to succeed. This article is about good business leadership achieving implementation of the plan. Good leaders make decisions and follow through.
Most business owners are aware of a couple of over used but important sayings. One saying is ‘Build your plan then work your plan’. Okay, I dig it. More on ‘working your plan’ in just a minute. The other tired saying tells us to ‘Work smarter not harder’. Well sure, but we have to do both. Not only does everyone I know have to work smarter to succeed, they’re working harder than ever. The economy and marketplace demand both. Smarter work occurs when we work from a plan.
Years ago, when I was first admonished to build a plan and then work it, I was one of those who didn’t have a formal strategy for my business. I wasn’t planning to succeed. I was stuck in a constant ‘peaks and valleys syndrome’ for both sales and management. We would be crazy busy and then near dead stopped. I wasn’t developing a well managed business and workforce. With not planning to succeed I was actually taking significant steps towards failure. Planning how we’re going to move the business forward is obviously very important. Starting the work to achieve the various goals of your plan is where the rubber really meets the road. Don’t get stuck in the planning and processing stage. General George Patton advised: “A good plan implemented today, is better than a perfect plan implemented tomorrow.”
Key Moves to Get You Where You Want To Go
A good plan includes and identifies key moves or steps necessary to complete the various pieces of your plan, the implementation. It also includes a timeline to complete implementation. For example, if improving or expanding your field operations and management are part of your plan, the implementation scenario would likely include one section covering Workforce and another section covering Project Management. The Workforce section of your plan may specifically address:
- Improving Our Workforce
- Hiring Right – surrounding our employees with more good employees
- Attitude & Aptitude Evaluation
- Job Skills Required – What do you really need? Skills Evaluation Form
- Background Checks and Driving Record, Drug Testing, Blood Lead Level
- Training New Hires
- Company Policies & Procedures
- Orientation & Safety Training
- Company Boot Camp
- Measurement System
- Probation Period
- Immediate Supervisor takes over
You then might need to add to your systems and forms through the creation of a new Hiring Evaluation form and an Employee Performance Review form. Once the forms are in place, implementing the plan would continue to using the forms, making them a part of your regular operating systems. Your business takes a formal and literal step forward at improving your workforce.
Keeping the goals you established in planning ‘less complex’ is important. When improving existing systems or creating new systems, if the work doesn’t actually happen because it is too complex, you fail to implement. Good leaders don’t shoot from the hip; they use systems, i.e., repeatable processes. Sometimes your planning may find needed improvements to procedures and systems already in place. Remember, good leaders make the decisions that move things forward. Your plan provides the roadmap to stay on course.
Measuring and staying on top of our plan and our numbers is an ongoing reality that leads to successful business operations. Monthly review meetings, to really measure where we are, compared to where we planned to be should be second nature. This is how we grow and how we implement our business success.
For those of you who have already completed updating or writing your plans for the new year and have spent the time looking at your 2011 numbers, followed by re-inspecting and tuning up your budget, congratulations. Step on the gas, full speed ahead!
Brandt Domas Brandt Domas is an energized construction industry and service business consultant, initiator, trainer and producer who also serves as the Executive Director of the PDCA Commercial Forum. He can be reached at bd@work-systems.com
