It’s Time. Take Your Business Planning to the Next Level—Today!
Failing to plan is planning to fail. You’ve heard that popular saying before. But how many of us leaders really pursue business planning as a consistent, ongoing activity?
At MAP Consulting, we believe planning is more than a one-off activity. It’s a discipline that, done well, can define direction for our leadership, our teams and the organization at large. When used as a blueprint around which your people are aligned and held accountable, it’s a powerful driver for success.
Yet many organizations don’t take planning super seriously. Sure, they may spend some time at the end of each year, outlining goals and strategies for the next 12 months, assigning budgets to support the plan’s potential. But what we often hear is that plans often get filed away on some computer or stuck in a drawer versus being used as a day-in, day-out living document.
The clients we work with who find success in business planning stand apart because of a number of key habits they’ve adopted and practice regularly. Some of these habits are tactical in nature, and others are more about mindsets they choose. What we know is that these disciplines work. Here are some planning pointers to keep in mind:
Planning is a culture-wide mindset and activity. From the top down, bottom up, outside in or inside out, these organizations make a commitment to macro planning activities as well as micro planning activities, and those smaller planning activities align with the vision, goals and strategies of larger plans. Paramount to all planning, everyone when asked, “What’s the goal?” and can answer that question and demonstrate or communicate how their own planning activities support that goal-centric mindset.
Planning extends beyond Q4. While you’re perhaps in the midst of planning for next year right now, make sure planning activities are calendared out so there’s no drop in momentum or opportunities to make excuses to push planning to the back burner, a common planning pitfall. If you can’t chart out a year’s worth of meetings just yet, at least commit to quarterly or monthly planning, making sure key players are present, including both staff and your MAP Consultant, or any other accountability partners who are helping hold your accountability solution in tack.
The Pareto Principal is great for igniting and sustaining planning momentum. When you create a solid plan, it can be hard to know where to start—everything feels like it matters. So let us help you prioritize and kick off planning, looking at the 20 percent of efforts that will net 80 percent of your desired results. As you execute, hit targets and check off successes (or take corrective action around any challenges), think “rinse and repeat,” identifying and acting on that next 20 percent that can net another 80 percent of successes. Doing too much at once can be costly to bandwidth, financial resources and the talent you’ve hired. Set and follow a business planning course that’s challenging but both doable and rewarding, so your people can really buy-in and believe in the process you’re asking them to own.
Download MAP’s Strategic Planning Fundamentals Checklist, and contact Us today for a complimentary, no-pressure consult on how we can help with your business planning.
