3 KEYS TO BUILDING GROWTH PLANS
Assuring leaders have a clear path to results.
Most companies that we work with are in “Growth Mode.” They have clear goals at the top for what they want to accomplish and when they want to get there. These companies have a variety of processes to cascade their high level goals to their executives and managers. These processes often vary widely in terms of consistency and overall effectiveness. Many of them aren’t as effective as they could be.
How could these plans really become “Growth Plans?” Here are three keys to improve your plans:
--Working more with the individual executive to understand the plan and how to improve it.
--Going deeper in terms of what the plan entails, how it connects to the strategy, and how it will work.
--Increasing ownership of the plan and being accountable for results to others on the team.
Key Point 1: Work with individual managers on a coaching basis as they develop their plans. My experience has been that it takes several iterations of the plan to get it to where it needs to be. In a recent project, we completed 4 evolving versions of the individual plans before we shared them with the CEO. As you can guess, version 4.0 of those plans looked a lot different than version 1.0. Individual coaching in creating Growth Plans probably makes the biggest impact. It raises the level of thinking for everyone involved in the process. We sometimes share the coaching role with a key executive from the company, where they coach a couple of planning iterations and we come in at key points to recap and help make adjustments. They can also help gauge the effectiveness of the plan including things like inter-dependencies, resource constraints, feasibility, etc.
Key Point 2: Check your planning templates…we actually make custom growth planning templates and add key fields to the plans based upon the needs of the company and their strategy. One recent plan template included a narrative on “how” the plan was going to work. Another recent template included key growth-related tactical deliverables for the first quarter of next year to enable a fast start. All of our templates require the planner to think about what it will take to achieve the results that they are seeking. We also have the planner reflect on their personal role in making the Growth Plan happen. Think about how well your planning template covers what you need to make happen.
Key Point 3: Openly share and discuss plans with senior leadership and each other. Any plan for growth is only as good as the weakest link in the chain. The executive team needs to take on the goals as a whole, own their piece of it and hold each other accountable for making it happen. They also have inter-dependencies that must enable each other’s success and white space issues that can cause problems and setbacks. Again, this is customized to the company and generally involves face-to-face team meetings at least on a bi-monthly basis. During these meetings, teams make course corrections and deal with issues as they arise. From a big picture perspective, all of these plans mesh together and should add up to achieve the collective intent.
How can you improve your planning process to better achieve the growth you are seeking?