“A good traveler has no fixed plans and is not intent on arriving.” Lao Tzu
I'm going to spend time with my partner outlining our plans for the next year. This will include sales plans, culture adjustments and important vendor decisions. I'll spend the next two days requesting information from my management staff and we will be working to craft a plan that will help guide us over the next 12 months.
Our plan will be nimble, only providing big ideas that will help guide our actions over the next few months. As a business owner for more than 15 years, I have seen many of my peers spend countless hours on some sort of plan, thinking that the plan was the important part of their job. But what I've learned is that the plan itself is about 10 percent of the job; 90 percent is always in the execution.
Life happens, and it is very hard to predict what is coming in the next few days, let alone the next few months. I love it when people begin talking about disaster planning and they outline the 80-page documents outlining what they will do in the event of a “disaster.” The big events like tornadoes, fires and earthquakes always seem to make the list, but these plans rarely include such things as a plague or airplanes running into your building.
The key to a successful disaster plan is simply communication. Our disaster plan is a one-page document that starts with our leadership team making a decision based upon the facts as we understand them, and then communicating that decision through a series of possible communication tools.
Depending on the disaster, we have no idea what means of communication we will have, and thus we spent our time focusing on various scenarios that would allow us to reach all our employees.
Ultimately, the worst-case scenario is a physical meeting place for each office to join together with a back-up location in case the first location is destroyed. We'll send initial messages via SMS, social media, email and, if possible, cell phones.
In our planning process, the simpler we can make the plan, the more nimble it becomes, so we can adjust the plan based upon the actual events versus the events that are known. Think back to Sept. 11, 2001. I don't think most business in the Twin Towers had a plan that accounted for aircraft collision. The world is a constantly changing, dynamic environment that calls for simplicity in the plan, but complexity in the execution.
Our employees are empowered to make decisions every day. Sometimes they make a wrong decision, but it's acceptable, because we owners make wrong decisions every day, too. The point is that empowerment of your people in your planning will allow for creative thinking and the ability to accomplish big-picture goals using the brain power of your entire staff, not just ownership or leadership.
I encourage all business owners to try and limit all of their plans to one page. Disaster plans, strategic plans and marketing plans are all best when goals are set but people are allowed to reach the goal however they see fit. It's our job as owners and leaders to check on progress throughout the plan's implementation and tweak it so that the desired result is not only achieved, but exceeded.
Many of my peers tell me that a one-page plan is impossible, but it is very possible. There is a company called Gazelles that has many simple one-page outlines that, if followed, can be successful. Visit their website to learn more.
Plan, but limit your time when creating the plan. Spend your time on execution and management and you might find that life is a journey and not a destination.
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