Summary

A well-formulated plan is the difference between playing checkers and chess in business. It increases alignment, focus, and engagement while reducing waste in time and resources. This article outlines the benefits of effective planning and provides practical suggestions for creating and driving strategy throughout your organization. 

What’s Your Dream?

What’s your dream for your business this year?  Really… think about it for a minute. If you could accomplish something that would elevate your business to the next level, what would it be? And how would that position you to grow and scale the way that you would like?

The deepest desire for most small business owners is to win… to create a thriving organization that not only creates financial freedom but makes a significant difference in the world. For their customers, stakeholders, employees and themselves, winning is a big deal. And when your team wins, the sense of pride and accomplishment can be enormous. 

When you lead your market, everything becomes easier and more (positively) challenging at the same time. You are able to attract customers, applicants, potential investors, suppliers, vendors, media, etc. more easily. The challenge is the effort required to handle all of the growth and activity. But what a problem to have! 

But winning in business, or really any other organization, isn’t easy. It takes grit, determination, and, if we’re honest, some good old-fashioned luck. It requires the ability to capture the hearts and minds of a group of people and take them to a level of performance that others typically aren’t willing to achieve. 

It’s important to remember that every win or success in business, or really any other organization, begins with a plan. 

To say that planning is important is really an understatement. It’s critical because the plan helps you clarify your goals, identify the resources that you need, and layout a roadmap for achieving what matters most. To dive a bit deeper, the process of designing a performance plan enables you to:

• Clarify your goals and objectives: Enabling you to hone-in on what matters most and build greater clarity around you’re your short and long-term targets. That clarity improves your team’s ability to make informed decisions and prioritize activities effectively.
• Create greater direction and focus: A good plan helps you stay focused on your priorities and avoid distractions that can derail your progress. It also helps you stay on track by providing a clear direction for your actions and decisions.
• Identify potential obstacles: Planning allows you to anticipate potential obstacles and challenges that may arise during the execution of your plan. By identifying these obstacles in advance, you can develop strategies to overcome them and minimize their impact on your progress.
• Allocate resources effectively: Planning helps you identify the resources you need to achieve your goals and allocate them effectively. This includes identifying the right team members, budgeting for necessary expenses, and establishing timelines more effectively.
• Improve communication and collaboration: A well-thought-out plan helps improve communication and collaboration within your organization. It ensures that everyone is working towards the same goals and has a clear understanding of their roles and responsibilities.

The vast majority of successful businesses have an annual planning process.  But this takes a significant amount of time and effort. And, for small business owners, allocating the time and energy necessary to develop a solid plan can be a challenge. But without a plan, you’re susceptible to a negative cycle as it leads activity and outcomes that are out of alignment with the long-term goals of the business. That, in turn, causes more challenge so time is constrained…. And the cycle continues.

My focus is on building stronger business performance through HR.  That’s because everything that leads to the success of your business happens in one way or another through your people. And given the fact that the people in the organization are typically the most complex, costly, and potentially impactful variable, ensuring that you have a roadmap for your performance makes all the sense in the world.

Gaining great traction in your business requires you to move employees to the highest possible level of performance.  That means they must understand and actively embrace the vision or plan you’re creating. It’s the only way they can do that is if it is clear and repeatedly shared. 

The plan makes the difference between playing checkers and chess in the market. It’s part of effective leadership and it’s required if you want to win. 

Everything Starts With The Goal. 

Business is about delivering value (results) to stakeholders. Plain and simple. In fact, the only reason strategy, leadership and culture exist is to facilitate the delivery of targeted results. Putting employees in motion (developing strategy, culture initiatives or any other activity) without an end goal in mind sends employees on a fool’s errand. It creates disorganization, confusion, wasted effort, and diffused activity.

So, the practice of clarifying goals is the first step.  These are the objective that you’re shooting for at the end of the year. These goal needs to be SMART (Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Results-focused and Time-bound). Only then can you begin making real progress on the plan that’s required to achieve them.

They say that “Culture eats strategy for breakfast”, but a core focus on results sets the table and prepares the meal.

The act of setting goals and objectives (business planning) may not sound like the most exciting activity, but the practice itself and the outcomes associated with it make all the difference in the world. And really, when you think about it, there are a few exciting things about it.

• It allows you to dream big:  When you're planning for your business's future, you’re able to dream big and envision what it could become. This can be an energizing process that helps you stay motivated and focused on your goals.
• It fosters creativity:  It can be a creative process that allows you to explore new ideas, strategies, and approaches. It’s an opportunity to think outside the box and come up with innovative solutions to business challenges.
• It helps you stay organized: Planning helps you stay organized and focused on your priorities. This can be a satisfying and rewarding experience, as you see your goals and priorities come together in a clear and actionable plan.
• It encourages collaboration: Business planning often involves collaboration with others, whether it's your team, partners, or advisors. This can be an exciting opportunity to work with others and tap into their knowledge, expertise, and ideas.
• It helps you anticipate and prepare for the future: Planning helps you anticipate potential roadblocks or challenges and prepare for them in advance. This can be an exciting opportunity to stay ahead of the curve and position your business for success.
• It sets the tone for action. Action without a plan is messy at best.  Planning highlights the key actions that must be taken to accomplish your goals, creates greater alignment and leads to better follow-through and course correction when necessary.

Unfortunately, many small businesses don’t take the time to plan. In part, because their owners and/or leaders are so busy conducting business, they can’t take a step back to evaluate and strategize.  They get lost in the whirlwind of everything going on and that distracts them from what really matters. 

The fact is, it’s critically important. 

Getting Started

So where do you begin?  Start with your operating targets, such as revenue, profitability, customer acquisition, and retention. Be specific and write them down. They should be viewed in the context of your stakeholders (customers, community, board of directors, investors, members of your leadership team, your employee base, etc.). Then answer the following ten questions to help you create the plan of action:

• What were the accomplishments and challenges of the previous year? What did you learn from these experiences and how do you want to build from them?
• What are the major trends and anticipated changes in the industry and market? How will these impact your business?
• What changes or innovations do you anticipate in your product or service offerings?
• Are you anticipating any significant change in your competitive landscape?
• What are your revenue and cost projections for the next year? Do you anticipate a change in your budget or financial plan?
• Do you anticipate significant changes in your operational processes or supply chain quality?
• What are your staffing and organizational needs for the next twelve month? Do you need to hire new employees or invest in training and development?
• What is your marketing and sales plan for the upcoming year? How will you reach your target market and drive sales?
• What are your risk management strategies for the upcoming year? How will you mitigate risks and handle unexpected challenges?
• What is your plan for growth and expansion in the upcoming year and beyond? What steps will you take to achieve long-term success?

OK…. Eleven.

• How will you reduce the amount of time that it is taking you and your leadership team to run the business? 

You may also want to consider asking, “What should we start, stop or continue doing to make the operation run more effectively?”

Remember that there are four things that really constitute growth – Revenue, profit, market share and customer acquisition/retention. So, the answer to each of these questions should lead you toward one of those four.   

Next, hone-in on the key elements that are going to make the greatest difference to the health and well-being of the business. Strive for three to five key objectives for the organization and they should serve as the anchor for all other objectives.

Why so few? Because creating a laser focus for everyone on just a handful of priorities creates greater power throughout the organization. So, work to reduce the number of non-essential projects that are not directly contributing to your short or long-term objectives. It’s really easy to lose your focus when you’re operating in a fog of busy-ness. Clear away what doesn’t add value.

Involve Your Stakeholders in the Discussion

It’s important to involve your key stakeholders, such as senior leadership, department heads, and employees, in the target-setting process if possible. This will ensure that everyone has a stake in achieving the targets and is committed to working towards them. People will care for what they’ve helped create.

Prioritize

Once the goals are nailed down, they need to be prioritized. If you’re working to achieve something substantial, the time and attention of your team will be stretched. And, as much as you want to achieve all of them, you may be put in a situation where you need to choose between them. Identifying the top three to five that will have the greatest impact on our short and long-term strategy and success is a good practice. This will help ensure that everyone is focused on the most critical targets.

Develop Incremental Targets

The best way to ensure that you are able to stay on track is to set incremental targets, smaller goals under shorter timeframes lead toward the accomplishment of the major goals.  Identifying a missed target early on can help you re-group and recover quickly rather than waiting until you’re late in the game. 

If you have the actionable, incremental steps in place, the path to accomplishing the goal becomes clearer.  The team’s perspective will also improve because the goal becomes more manageable. 

Prepare to Measure Progress

Then it becomes a matter of measuring your progress. KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) are the way to do that. They’re the metrics tracked to ensure that you’re continuing to move in the right direction and maximizing your results.  Tracking your progress allows you to gauge your effectiveness but it also helps you identify when trouble is brewing that might derail your efforts. 

Ideally, this would be accomplished electronically through a dashboard but it’s important to keep this information in front of you. For several clients, I’ve developed wall charts that highlight the key Initiatives, deliverables, and the progress being made against them. Make it as detailed as you would like but make sure that you, again, highlight those elements that are most directly tied to the three to five objectives that you set. Keep it in focus.

Then it becomes a matter of building the practices and processes that will support the journey.

The Employee Variable

The practice of achieving great results on a consistent basis is a serious challenge.  The reason is that people are… well, people. With competing priorities and attention spans that are shorter than ever, the ability to keep them on track and motivated is more challenging than ever. But that’s exactly what’s needed. 

Their focus and engagement is going to have a dramatic impact. Your ability to effectively drive the goal into their hearts and minds and keep it there makes all the difference. To use a sports analogy, this is about getting them to care as much for the name on the front of the jersey as the name on the back. This differentiates high performing leaders from the rest. 

Goals should require stretching… or they’re not big enough. Before people are willing to stretch for something, they need to understand it and embrace it. So, the time invested in crafting a compelling vision of what needs to happen is key. Consider the following questions:

• What is the overarching objective that I’m working to accomplish?
• Why is the objective important and how will you communicate that importance? (People work harder toward objectives if they understand the reasoning behind it.)
• What are you really asking the employee(s) to do?
• What obstacles do you anticipate along the way?
• How will they personally benefit from accomplishing the objective? (Monetarily or otherwise – Reciprocity is an important part of motivation.
• If the objective will truly require them to stretch, how will you support and reinforce the additional effort that’s going to be required for them to pull it off?

Drive Clarity

Once the goals have been created and formalized, the critical work begins… putting them into action. Creating the energy and momentum that generates the results. If you want to maximize your chances of achieving the results you’re after, you have to make sure that your team is crystal clear on what’s expected / desired. Please hear me on this. Setting a clear objective from the very beginning is half the battle. 

That means you need to share the information actively, repeatedly, thoroughly, collectively and individually.  This is the only way to ensure that everyone will align the way they need to.

During your regular team meetings, the core goals need to be revisited frequently. This helps reduce the influence of competing priorities and reduces the impact of unnecessary work that doesn’t contribute to the result you’re really wanting. In time, all employees should be able to explain what the targets are, why they are important and what’s expected of them collectively to

make it happen. 

The reason “Why” that lies behind the goal is important. People work hard for money…they work harder for great leaders…but they work hardest for a common purpose they are truly committed to.

Individual Performance Objectives

One of the pitfalls many small business owners fall into is that they attempt to carry too much of the weight on their own shoulders.  Leaders who fail to delegate effectively are asking for heartache because they will end up spending way too much time in the weeds. Setting, managing and coaching on individual performance objectives is the solution. 

You need to share the work and trust your team to perform. This is hard for some people as they want to play the “hero” role. But it short circuits growth. 

Each of the three to five core organizational or business function objectives should be broken down into smaller activities and deliverables at an individual level. Once again, each element should be clearly stated and SMART (again, Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Results-focused and Time-bound). And there should be a means of measuring progress against them. 

Ideally, the goals should also be meaningful. Human motivation is messy. If you want the best results from people, it’s important to take the time and connect the dots between what matters to them personally and what matters to the organization. Otherwise, their focus will shift. The key is to help them understand how accomplishing the organization’s goal will benefit them personally – financially, in their career, etc.

If you want to gain more momentum, also work toward enabling your employees to identify each day whether they have progressed toward the goal. This can be a bit of challenge but the people that you want on your team (those that take ownership and strive for high performance) want to see progress and to know where they stand. 

Coaching and Feedback 

Let’s take a moment to clarify the difference between performance management and performance coaching. There’s an overlap between the two but there are also some subtle differences that are important. 

Performance management is the overall approach, process and practice associated with managing the performance of the employee. It’s setting objectives, monitoring progress and reviewing performance. It can also include recognition for high performance and performance improvement plans (PIPs) or disciplinary action for lower results. 

Performance coaching, on the other hand, is the act of a leader in guiding and directing progress toward goals. It’s the practice of engaging with employees on a regular basis (rather than once or twice per year) to understand 1) where they are in their progress toward their goals, 2) what’s standing in their way and 3) how the leader can help facilitate forward movement.  This is a more frequent conversation and should be occurring on a monthly or quarterly basis. It’s not designed to be a formal conversation but rather an opportunity to identify ways to make additional progress.  

Performance coaching is the key differentiator in building higher individual performance. If it’s handled well, it also strengthens the relationship between the leader and the employee. And that relationship is a major contributor in an employee’s loyalty to the business long-term. 

Effective individual performance is part of the equation. Another is the team’s performance. The goal is to position the team to accomplish their work effectively, to improve the work product and to ideally deliver results without your direct involvement.

Potential Challenges to Goal Achievement

In the end, one of the greatest obstacles or opportunities (depending on your effectiveness) is in keeping everyone focused and engaged on accomplishing the goals and plans that you’ve established.  There are three key challenges to employee and team performance that should be considered. 

Becoming Spread Too Thin

One of the greatest challenges that businesses face is a lack of focus. A lack of focus often happens because the organization (and individuals) are spread too thin, trying to address too many objectives. Priorities get lost in the shuffle of all of the activity. The key is to really hone in on a handful of objectives that will have the greatest impact and focus more heavily on successfully achieving those. 

Every objective should be carefully evaluated based on the level of impact that it will have on the organization. The key is to simplify, removing non-essential busy work that doesn’t add value. Narrow your list to three to five key objectives that really matter. This is a challenge for some people who tend to protect themselves under the umbrella of busy-ness. But it’s how you gain traction. 

Lack of Communication

Entire books have been written on the importance of solid communication practices within organizations. When there is a lack of communication, when information is held close to the vest, and when there is a lack of cadence in sharing information, engagement, trust and focus decline. 

Effective leaders work hard to ensure that communication is flowing up, down and sideways through the organization, especially when it comes to the progress being made toward the goals. This improves both alignment and engagement and decreases confusion. 

Lack of Buy-in

A lack of buy-in can stem from a number of things including a mismatch in values, a lack of understanding, frustration over perceptions that employees are giving more than they are receiving, or a lack of resources to get their work done. Understanding where employees’ heads and hearts are is part of the battle. Once you understand that (through effective communication), you can respond and begin to build. The biggest issue that many leaders face is often that they don’t dig-in to really understand and build the commitment needed.

If you want to improve your chances of success, you must get employees on-board and enthusiastic about the work that needs to be done. How do you influence the way that people think, feel and act in regard to the goals? 

Disengagement occurs when employees are simply told, these are the objectives, now get them done.  They need to understand the underlying benefit of hitting the targets, both personally and organizationally.  Helping people understand the “Why” behind the work is a big part of the equation. The idea of working on something without purpose is draining. But understanding that your work is contributing to something meaningful or progressing them toward an objective that they believe in leads to greater engagement. Why do the results matter? What does it mean to the overall health and well-being of the organization? What does it mean for the lives of your customers or community?

It's helpful to understand the personal side. What are their personal and professional goals and how does accomplishing the objective help them get closer to achieving them? This is about communication and reciprocity in the relationship and it needs to be instilled in the organization from the top down. The act of sharing success with the team increases buy-in and drives loyalty. You’re working to influence their belief system.

Conclusion

Effective planning is critical for the success of your business. It increases focus, alignment and engagement and it decreases wasted time, effort and resources. It doesn’t have to be a complicated process but the more clearly you define your objectives and the required supporting activity, the more likely you are to gain traction and grow your business. 

Great bands use sheet music to ensure everyone is on the same page. It’s the only way to ensure that the melodies and harmonies work effectively together. Your plan is your sheet music. Huge talent without a plan often creates noise but a great plan can lead to a masterpiece!

Once your plans are in place, the next step is to ensure that they remain top of mind and that high levels of alignment, engagement, and accountability are developed within the team. 

Remember that continual follow-through makes the difference. Avoid the temptation of shelving your strategy until half-way through the year. It should be a living, breathing document that you reference nearly every day. Progress should be measured through KPIs or general metrics almost religiously and this should be a regular topic of discussion. Continual focus on these reinforces their importance in the minds of employees. 

For more information about creating greater alignment, engagement and accountability within your organization, schedule a free coaching call using the link below.

https://letsmeet.io/brianwallace/60-minute-coaching-call