The Value of A 2011 Business Plan: Part II

Last week, I wrote about how important it is to take the time to create a business plan, whether you are the leader of a company (no matter how big or small the company may be), a solo-preneur, or a businessperson within a company. It will help achieve the results you want.

Please know that this does not require a great deal of time to do properly. In fact, I prefer that it be completed pretty quickly so that we can swing into action on a timely basis and get a quick start to the year.

Questions about which segments of our business to address should be given to our people a week or so ahead of a meeting and our people should be asked to draft notes with their ideas ahead of the meeting. Then, when we sit down for a round table, participatory discussion, there very likely will be a lot of ideas. Ideas are what we want.

We start with no bad ideas, as we want to be creative and think of new and different approaches. Once ideas are captured by questions, we can then analyze the potential value of these ideas, set priorities, and decide what's to be done and when.

If the discussion is collaborative, with facilitation so that everyone contributes enthusiastically and has the encouragement of every team member, then we can truly be a team who looks at the results we want not simply as goals, but as shared promises. If I may borrow from Bob Dunham of Newfield, “We are all together as a team, we all share responsibilities for superior client service, client satisfaction, growing our business, marketing, sales, communicating and other important segments of our business so we may maximize our capabilities and our success.”

We have to establish a sense – a realization and acceptance of all team members – that healthy conflict is okay. We want different opinions that we can discuss to be able to hash things out and ultimately decide what is best for us, for our team, for our company.

Of course, in our creative discussions, we cannot ignore the reality of financials – revenues, growth, expenses, earnings – as the fundamentals are critically important for year end results, to assure we are on track during the year, and to help keep us from getting side tracked with projects and work that maybe we shouldn't be doing. Additionally, we must remember that marketing is absolutely critical, challenging and complex, as the dynamics of our business world are so rapidly changing. Our business cannot stand still. We grow or we fall behind.

A note of caution: We can have an enthusiastic planning meeting, develop a fundamentally sound and creatively exciting plan, decide who has the lead for various areas of action, and establish target dates – but still not follow through when we get back into our day to day activities.

We all have to be on the same page to gain the power of a true team, and we have to accept accountability to one another. We have to be ready to call out one another when something does are not get done as and when it should, as that is best for the team.

Additionally, there must be external accountability to the entire team, ideally to someone who is not part of the team, though could be at the planning meeting. This person could potentially be the Chairman of the Board, the CEO, a coach – someone to follow up, to call us to task. We need this to assure we follow through on what we have decided will help us achieve our desired results.

We use the term “having ownership” of ideas often, and yet creating this sense of ownership so that ideas are implemented by actual hard work is difficult to achieve. There is no better way to begin creating this sense of ownership by all team members than with everyone thinking together about a plan to have a great 2011. Then we can have a spirit of "Watch out world, here we come!"