Article 17: The Many Skills Needed by Leaders Part 2

PREFACE:
This article focuses on planning. It is impossible to over emphasize the importance of planning for a leader but I often find that people who have a desire to lead frequently are so focused on today that they can short change tomorrow. They are often fairly good short range planners and can develop great strategies and tactics but can lose sight of long the term effects of those strategies and tactics. We experienced this with one of our clients when he crafted a new plan for employee compensation. On paper and in the short run it looked like a great plan but after several weeks there was a great deal of employee dissatisfaction and some long term employees began to quit.

Planning involves more than simply putting together what appears to be a logical plan. It also involves the consideration of as many consequences, both good and bad, as possible. If we anticipate the potential problems that may be created by the actions we plan to take, we can do several things:

1. Make sure every part of any plan you make is fully intentional. Remember that choice is always better than chance. To do this requires that you open your thinking. Some people are naturally disposed to think in terms of limitations. To be as intentional as possible requires that you engage in limitless thinking.
2. Be aware of the signs that will indicate that anticipated problems are on the horizon. This means we have to think through the possible problems. Some leaders do not clearly see potential problems that lie ahead so it would be to their advantage to make certain that they have someone on their team that has clear insight into potential problems. The leader must realize that this lack of problem anticipation can be a performance blocker. Finally, it is important to make sure not to discount the input from that “problem anticipator” as can often happen because the leader is so focused on taking action.
3. Create solutions and/or alternatives in case the problems come to pass. For many very results driven leaders the exercise of contingency planning can seem like a huge waste of time. I know this first hand. But I also know that failure to do this can leave a leader wide open to “land mines” that can blow the best laid plans to pieces.
4. Engage those who we think may be affected by the problem before we implement our plan to get their take on the situation. If you think you can plan without input from those who will be affected by your plans, I want you to consider this example. A CEO of a fairly large company decided, with the assistance of his CFO, that restructuring the compensation plan for employees would improve the company’s bottom line by doing two important things; improve productivity because of the incentives being offered and reduce costs because the employees would work more efficiently. Because the employees who were affected were not consulted became so disgruntled with a plan that they did not completely understand before it was implemented, more than half of them resigned and went to work with competitors. This left the company in a real quandary—they had to hire dozens of new workers, had production positions that were not filled and work did not get done, orders were not filled, they lost customers, the HR Department became overloaded and the HR Director and several staff (all who had no input on the system) became frustrated and left the company. The overall damage was more than $500,000 in losses and then there was the cost of finding and hiring replacements for everyone who left.
5. Check for alignment. Before any plan is implemented, review the vision, mission, and purpose of your organization and then compare all aspects of the plan to these core values and principles of the organization. If the plan is not aligned with these core values and principles, stop everything and make sure you can create alignment. Alignment can be created in one of two ways: either by modifying the plan or by changing the core values and principles of the organization. Whichever you decide to do, it needs to be intentional. Remember that you create the culture of your organization by what you do and what you do not do and by what you will tolerate and what you will not tolerate. Whenever you take actions that are out of alignment you send a message throughout the organization that either the values have changed or you just don’t care about the values you profess to adhere to. Either way the impact will be significant so you should not venture into those waters without knowing what you are doing.

As you engage in the planning process, remember that planning exists in numerous dimensions and on several different planes. We talk about the dimensions of People, Tasks, and Systems and the levels of short-range, medium-range, and long-range plans. What this means is to make sure your plans fully consider people, tasks, and systems and that we consider the immediate, six month, and five year impact of what we do. I know that is not new information but it is worthy of your attention in every planning act. And what happens all too often is that in
the heat of the moment, pieces of the process can get lost. Formalizing the system and making certain that every possible angle is considered is necessary especially if a leader is so focused on today’s result that tomorrow is not so clear.

To make the process of planning easier it is important to understand how to develop strategies and tactics. A strategy is a specific plan or set of action steps one takes in order to achieve a desired mid or long range outcome or goal while a tactic involves the more immediate steps needed to achieve each step along the path to success. One can be an excellent strategist but a lousy tactician. That happens when you have the gift of seeing the big picture but fail to see the more immediate details of the process. Conversely, you can also be a great tactician and a weak strategist. Organizations need both in order to succeed.

The most common strategy development process is one that begins with the desired outcome and works its way backwards to where you are today. For example, if you desire to have your organization serve 1,000 clients, if you begin by imagining you presently serve 1,000 clients and begin to describe your organization as it will need to be to successfully serve that many clients, you will be on the road to achieving the goal. Now we can start working backwards from that goal until we hit our current situation and we will have reverse “engineered” the process that will get us there. Every step forward from where we are today until we hit our goal in the future, will require tactical actions designed to ensure success.

THE ARTICLE:
The Many Skills Needed by Leaders Part II:
PLANNING:
Planning is the process of developing a crystal clear vision and then creating the processes and systems that will move us towards that vision. It involves setting short, intermediate, and long range goals as well establishing objectives and benchmarks to guide us towards the attainment of our desired outcomes. If we begin with a crystal clear vision, we are well down the road to the creation of a successful strategy. The vision is the glue that holds the parts of the strategy together. The vision is the filter through which every tactic is analyzed.

If a tactic is not aligned to the vision, it should not be used. Our vision must also be consistent with our values and beliefs. If there is a disconnect between our vision and our valuesand beliefs we will never be able to put forth the energy and effort necessary to achieve our vision. We use a concept that says “Our Success Will Never Exceed Our Dreams.” That sits at the core of our planning process. Our vision is our dream. So what’s our vision at Win the Bigger Game? Our vision is that we will be the “Go To Company” whenever someone or some company wants to learn how to make better decisions relating to the performance of people. Whether that is for the purpose of hiring and promoting, developing skills within the organization, or simply better relationships between people, we want to be the first one you or anyone thinks of.

The direct outcome of our planning work is to help organizations design a culture that promotes success. An organization’s culture is reflected in how it gets things done and how the people of the organization feel about the processes that produce the results. A leader’s values and beliefs will naturally push that leader towards certain action steps and it is the leader’s responsibility to be fully aware of how those processes affect the climate within the organization. It’s not good enough to say “I have your best interest in mind!”

When we engage in planning we often hear the terms tactics and strategies and sometimes we have difficulty differentiating between the two. Strategies are the means by which we will get to our objective. Tactics are the series of individual actions that make up our strategy. By carefully considering the strategies we will use to move us from where we are to where we want to be, we have engaged in strategic planning. If we create a plan to win a football game, we will create strategies designed to produce touchdowns. We will also create strategies designed to prevent the opposition from scoring touchdowns. We will use certain plays to move us closer and closer to the goal and we will have contingencies to put in place if our plans do not yield the desired outcome. Our tactics in either of these processes are the actions each player employs on each play to help us achieve our goals.

SUMMATION:
One of the most obvious conclusions from this article is that all plans begin with a goal; a desired future state. If planning is an absolute necessity for any leader that creates the supposition that “Goal Setting” is also absolutely necessary. That means a leader needs to know where she wants to lead her troops. You cannot be a leader without a vision. You may not lead with that vision as the cornerstone of your leadership mantra but without that vision there is no reason to lead. In fact, what you create is a bunch of people sort of milling around, wandering aimlessly, and lost in the wilderness.

Once you have that vision of where an organization can go it must be conveyed to the followership in a way that creates a desire on the part of the followership to move in that direction. Most followers will not know how to get there. That’s where the strategizing and tactical thinking comes in. A good leader will realize that some followers may have great ideas about the best way to achieve the desired outcomes. Some will be able to contribute to the development of strategies while others can assist with tactics. Some may be able to do both. Others will be better at following orders and carrying out specific actions.

Many followers will not be people who see their role clearly. Left to their own devices they can get off track and move in ways that can be counterproductive. Good leaders help to bring those individuals back into the fold whether that is done by inspiration, constructive feedback, or by setting an example for followers to emulate doesn’t matter. What matters is that leaders not let the team go astray.

The best plans, strategies, and tactics are of little value unless the team learns how to execute those plans, strategies, and tactics. This may require some education and training. It may require the imposition of discipline and the application of incentives. By discipline I don’t mean punishment, I mean the constructive encouragement for team members to stick to the plan. And by incentives I don’t mean money, although money can be an incentive. The best incentives are enticements that match an individual’s motivational preferences. Some people are motivated by money but many others are motivated by the opportunity to learn, or to achieve greater independence, or to work in a more predictable, safe, and structured environment, or perhaps to make a difference in the world either environmentally or humanitarianly. Figuring out what will get people excited about the work at hand is one of the key functions of a leader and understanding that people are not all the same is critical.

Finally, no plan is really complete unless it has a system in place for determining what success is. Just saying we want to have 1,000 clients at the end of this process does not mean we have a good plan. We can achieve that 1,000 client level in 5 years and have it all collapse in the ensuing 12 months. We must set up the criteria by which we will truly know if we are successful. Perhaps our goal was simply to get to the 1,000 clients and we don’t care beyond the five years we are giving ourselves to get there. That would tell us we have only one metric, number of clients. But, it will be much more realistic if we have other measures as well such as level of client satisfaction, average annual spend per client, and rate of client turnover. When we know how success is measured and we know it before we even begin, we also set the table for regular organizational check-ups. Having multi-dimensional metrics allows us to look at more than just the surface of our goal. It allows us to get underneath and figure out not just are we making progress but why we are or are not making that progress.