Category: Planning

Leaders understand that large opportunities are also Awesome Responsibilities.

Any significant opportunity is larger than the individual leading it. The outcome (success or failure) will impact others as well as the organization. Because great leaders look at large opportunities as responsibilities, their success rate is much higher than others. Here are a few things they do to ensure large opportunities have successful outcomes:

  1. They think long and hard about the opportunity before they sign up
  2. They check themselves for the juice they and their team have in the tank; it will be needed because things seldom go as planned.
  3. They make a plan and ensure they have the right team and resources
  4. They set up inspection points
  5. They celebrate the small wins and learn from the small failures along the way

Successful outcomes require great leadership and teamwork, which makes being the leader an Awesome Responsibility.

When you’re setting goals, it’s important to focus on the inputs first. What new investments (in people, technology, etc…), services or offerings, is your organization adding in the coming year that will impact results? And when it comes time to inspect results and see how you measured up against your goals, you have to make sure you’re making the right comparisons.

In high-growth organizations, success is not defined as simply doing better than last year. Year over Year comparisons are only valid if there are no changes to the inputs. Success is defined as planning effectively and achieving results that justify the investments made. Performance vs. goal is the primary comparison in regards to success. Year over year comparisons should only be used as a highlight when we are achieving goals and want to show anecdotal information. Transparency is a dangerous thing if the wrong data is highlighted. If we miss, we discuss, learn, and set action items for better results in the future.

For illustration purposes…..

  1. When it comes to goal setting, the right starting point is to focus on investments/changes being made, and then tying the goals to results that justify such investments. Assume a company has a goal to increase its amount of sales/leads from its existing customers by 10% year over year. Is that a good goal? Maybe, but only if nothing in the organization is changing. What if you knew the company recently invested in/added many new solutions to its portfolio, and the account base and sales/marketing resources are being invested in at a much higher level…… how does it sound now? It is typical for goals to be set at a higher level than the results achieved in a previous period, however to do that as a starting point would be arbitrary. Goal setting should start with careful consideration of the change in inputs.
  2. A business leader announces “Revenue is up by 10%!”. Now assume that the goal was to increase revenue by 20%, and part of that plan was an increase in investments and expenses by 30%. The result of only growing by 10% may mean the company is now in the red. So should the fact that revenue grew by 10% be presented as a success? See how dangerous it would be to use that as a headline announcement? Not only is it the wrong comparison to focus on, but the announcement just changed “what good looks like” to all stakeholders. It is always good to focus on the positives from a motivational stand point, but we must be mindful in order to avoid confusing our listeners.

As leaders we carry the awesome responsibility of putting together the plan and the vision, and for transparently reporting outcomes. Those we lead depend on us to do it right and to accurately report on what success looks like.

Here’s to all of us improving as leaders in the new year!

Acknowledging how much goes in to getting something done right and on-time is the first step in being dependable, which is everything when it comes to leadership

Leaders will use a team to complete certain components of a project, but the key expectation of the leader is that they understand when something is really done. This is so important in regards to hitting deadlines; we can all reference projects that were completed in a quality manner, but that were overshadowed due to being late. Here is a final checklist (in order) for getting something done. Incorporating each step is what allows for proper planning, execution, and on-time results.

Final three steps in getting something DONE:

  1. Documentation is complete (final approval has been obtained)
  2. Tested before roll-out; There is rarely a test run that does not result in a modification. Expect and plan for a rinse and repeat cycle between items one and two
  3. Completion of roll-out, training, and enablement; done means it is live and ready to achieve the results that made the project purposeful in the first place

We can produce on-time quality results once we understand that these three items must be part of classifying a project as “done”. As an extra bonus, the list also serves as a natural filter for prioritizing and embarking on projects. We only have so much bandwidth, and need to refrain from equating being busy with being productive.

As personal circumstances change, self-assess and “adjust you” as a first step.

We all go through changes in life, and every change has an impact on the trajectory of what happens next. Some changes we control and some we do not, but what we can always control is how we deal with change. Just speaking from my own experience…… I remember when I was in my twenties, which was when my role at work was mostly sales related. I prided myself on being one of the hardest working and most efficient sales people, which is what I knew I had to be in order to create enough business to scale to our company to the next level. Then I met my future wife and got married at 29. Of course this was a great change, and one that made me realize I needed to make some adjustments to me and how I spent my day so that I could spend quality time with her, while not letting my foot off the gas pedal in regards to my career and our company. I knew I did not want to give up my health and at the time I was working out in the evenings. My wife is an evening person and I am a morning person, so my self-assessment was that I needed to switch my workouts to happen before she would wake up, and I would work a bit later, so that when I got home, it would be home time and no more work.

Then at 32 we started having babies. We had our first baby girl and I realized I could not work late hours any longer. I did the self-assessment and realized I needed to get my non-interruption work (working when others are not, to focus on strategy/catch up items) done before my workout, so that I could come home around 5:30 p.m. or 6 p.m., rather than an hour later. The diagnosis was that my 5:15AM wake-up time needed to shift to 4:15AM. Done.

Then….. I ran out of my own 24 hours. I had taken away most of my “me” time, while still preserving my 1 hour alone time, my workout, and my family time. There were no more efficiencies to gain; so it was either accept that the professional pace could not continue and just settle for “normal”, or stay dedicated to growth on behalf of our clients, employees, and all other stakeholders. I chose the latter which meant bringing on additional leadership (and me changing regarding giving up leadership of certain areas), who had to be like-minded with similar drive and commitment to growth. I also had to shift my focus to making sure our management team continued to be solid, growing, and have the right mindset. If I had not made these choices, we would not have grown from 46 employees to 120 in the last three years.

In summary – had I known all the personal time changes I would need to make in order to continue having the GWC (“Get It”, “Want It”, and have the “Capacity” to do it) factor, I could have really been a superstar in my 20s; life was much easier, however we don’t know that until we experience each change in life. The main point of my message is that we all control how we choose to react to change, and we should never fall victim to believing outside factors are contributing to our new capacity issues we experience, without doing our own self-assessment and making changes to our own disciplines first.

The choice can also be to not change; just be conscious about it and recognize that all the factors around you have not changed and there will be issues to address and ultimately changes you will need to make so that you can stay balanced and satisfied in life.

 

As leaders we must provide the Whiteboard along with the motivation and accountability.

12 years ago I enhanced my workout routine by joining a gym that is focused on a circuit training type routine. The specific difference is that there is a Whiteboard that lays out all exercises to be completed within an hour. It is instructor led, but not one on one; we are broken up into groups and the instructor is there to educate us on the workout before we start, to answer questions as we move through the Whiteboard, and to motivate us to do the routine the right way and finish on time. The result is that my workout group has had the same people in it for all these years (low turnover) and everyone works hard and gets along. They are all top notch people in general as well. However, if you took the white board and instructor (our leader) away from us, we would probably just drink coffee and do a couple of sets of something, or we would most likely leave and go find a better leader/organization to be part of. Staying with the gym/workout theme….. Who do you think performs higher – people who go to an instructor/course led facility where they are held accountable, or those who go to a regular gym and their routine and motivation is all on them? Just walk into each type of facility and the answer is apparent.

People expect strategy, motivation, and accountability to be driven by leadership. It is a mistake to convince ourselves that the team should just be naturally motivated, strategic, and hold themselves accountable. If this were the case, why would leaders be needed. Only 10% of people do these things naturally and rise to the top. However, that 10% and the other 90%, expect the organization and their leader to lead them on their path to success. This is the same for me when I go to my 5:45 a.m. class each morning; My expectation is that I am going to show up, be led, and I am going to perform at a very high-level because of the environment, the leadership, and my peers all being on the same page.

Leaders should always provide the vision/plan, give guidance and motivate others for execution, and inspect/hold others accountable. Otherwise, the team might just be wondering around the gym and getting much less of a work-out completed.

 

 

Justifying and Prioritizing Projects

To provide context, let’s define a “project” as it relates to this post: A project is a complex issue, with a defined set of goals, that requires a leader to influence/motivate many others, implement strategy, inspect, and ensure execution.

The vision for an organization is one big project that cascades into other projects and supporting goals, which also have cascading projects that are nested all the way down. The importance of justification and prioritization is critical at every level.

All projects (starting with the highest level vision) must be justified; Similar to culture, they should not just “happen” and there should be some guiding principles/values in place.

Here are some tips on justifying projects:

  1. Challenge, challenge, challenge; The leader should vigorously challenge their own projects/vision during the planning process. The higher level the leader is, the less likely they are to be challenged by others, therefore know that it is appropriate to be hard on yourself when planning. Then ask your peer group to beat you up a bit more; which is all about crisp justification for something that is about to be your obsession for a period of time, and that will impact many (if not all) others in the organization.
  2. When assisting others in justifying their projects: Ensure they have gone through the exercise above by having them answer the following questions:
    1. Why in the heck should we do this?
    2. Is it supported by our overall vision?
    3. What will our measurable(s) be?
    4. If successful, will the results be material?
    5. What happens if the project fails? This should be the last question because the answer(s) will validate importance/justification

In regards to prioritizing projects:

  1. Stack/rank by measurable and the impact of outcomes
  2. No one should have more than 3-5 direct projects at any given time; any excess should be kicked down the list or deleted (if they are important they will resurface)
  3. If there are too many projects for the leaders who are available to manage them, change an input. Either the team/investment needs to grow, or the priorities need to shrink to a manageable level. The key is in justifying the projects first; if there really are more than the team can handle and they have all been justified, grow the team and invest in people and resources at a higher rate.

Hope is not a good strategy

The things that we find ourselves hoping for, are exactly those that we need to break down into actionable projects with the appropriate accountability/inspection points. We have to be intentional about our success, while being able to predict failures and act in advance to avoid them.

Today is the day. Dive into your areas of hope; break them down, and turn hope into the highest probability of success. Once that corner is turned, stress is minimized and confidence replaces hope.

Big changes require great plans, and great plans require even better audits

Things never go as planned with large projects/big changes. If the proper inspection cadence is not set as part of rolling out the plan, then it is futile to be frustrated by a lack of execution. I have accepted that where people (and even the best people) are required, certain things will not start, be done as intended, be finished, etc., without proper follow-up by the leader…….and that with more people, the chance of miss-alignment is magnified.

For the project to be worth starting, the leader of the project must be willing to do what is required for success and put in the inspection points at the onset. Similar to a meeting being unproductive with out a leader, agenda, and set duration, so is a plan that does not include an audit process.

 

Just my annual rant on Goal Setting

This morning I sent out the following message to my MCCi family (all team members)…….

My wife recently asked what our family traditions are and what we want them to be going forward.  It was fun to think back about what each of our family traditions have been, and it was a great discussion that resulted in us making some changes based on what we want to do going forward as our lives have evolved with each other, children, family, and our friends.  We also discussed how important it was to have our own personal traditions that focus on self-improvement and being the best we can be as individuals.

As we go into the new year, I wanted to share with you some of the things that are a personal tradition in regards to ending the year and starting a new one.  It all revolves around reflection on goal achievement and setting new goals.   It is also why I am up at 5AM on a day that we have off as a paid holiday – it is that important, given it is the one tradition that I credit with every significant improvement (and failure) I have made in my life.    My overall feeling about the importance around this annual goal setting tradition is best reflected by one of my favorite quotes:   “Failing to plan is planning to fail” – Benjamin Franklin.   What follows is just a list of things I do around goal setting and self-accountability.

Goal Achievement Reflection

  • This is constant throughout the year, but having my list of goals in front of me throughout the year is what keeps me focused.
  • I do this one final time at the end of the year, which helps me set new and more powerful goals the following year.
  • If I hit all my goals – I did a poor job in setting them. This is my personal take, because goal setting is about real improvement, which is tough unless you are tough on you.

Goal Setting

  • Write them down! I have mine for each year dating back to 2005.
  • Focus on a mixture of professional and personal. Just like life, growth needs to be balanced
  • Make them as quantifiable as possible for clear tracking.
  • Think through the timing and general steps that must occur in order to achieve goals
    • Throughout the year, have a system (calendar, tasks, etc.) that prompts you to focus on the nuggets to get you there.
  • Have mentors agree to hold you accountable throughout the year and provide them with a list of your goals. Remember it is on you to schedule the recurring meetings with your mentors, and it is on them to hold you accountable
  • Have family/spouse hold you accountable – give them a list too

If you have never done it – the best place to start is to just write your goals down, and make a monthly calendar item to review your goals.   Just the act of writing them down and reflecting on them will make you a better person, and the process will get better and better with time.  This morning I looked back at my goals from 2005, 2006, etc., and they were a bit humorous in regards to what my goals look like today vs. then.   My biggest takeaway was that I failed quite a bit, but the failure came from trying, and each failure was a pivot to a new goal that was actually the right path.

Many of you know how serious I am about this and many of my friends poke fun at me (my best buddy at my rehearsal dinner made a joke that I did not propose to Kristen until I had reviewed her business plan).  However, if my sharing this helps just one person – I have done my duty in sharing something that truly works and that can better one’s life tremendously.   I will leave you with one fact.    I did not come up with this tradition of goal setting on my own.   When I was 22, my mentor, friend, and the chairman of our board, Lawton Langford is the one that questioned me about if I have written goals.  He asked “do you write your goals down”.   I said “I have goals, but I do not really write them down”.   He replied – “start writing them down – it will make all the difference in the world”.

I listened and he was right, and therefore I felt compelled to share.

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“It all comes out in the wash, so why not make sure it is clean?”

I can really screw up the simple act of washing clothes; leave them in the washer too long before moving them to the dryer and I have to start all over; use the wrong amount of detergent and failure happens again; and last/worst – when I try to do something nice for my wife, I ruin their favorite clothes.   Yep, I have done all these things and it is the one chore I am not allowed to do any longer.

With the concept of leadership we are focused on practicing proactive communication, planning, and execution.   Organizations can exist and will continue (for some period of time) to move forward without these things, however it would not be the leadership way, nor would it be clean (netting the best results).      Here are just a few examples in the form of questions:

  • If you know the keys to success in your business, are you proactively and consistently measuring them so that you can ensure outcomes are in line with goals?
  • Do you come up with new goals and plans routinely and well ahead of the time period in focus, or do you wait until bad things start happening?
  • Should you wait to tell your team about health insurance changes, only after they have received their new insurance cards and start having questions?
  • When great things happen do you proactively let your team know, or just let them find out from someone else?  The same goes for when bad things happen.
  • When there is a customer issue are you out ahead of it and communicating with the client, or do you let it sit too long, only for them to become more agitated and start making inquiries?

Leaders have the right answers to the questions above.  Not only that, through their actions they have instilled leadership concepts in their organizations; their team would have the same answers.

To be conscious and proactive is a choice.  It is all about thinking ahead, understanding the importance of good communication, and genuinely caring about all stakeholders.