Plan to Plan

?

In this Issue:

1.??? Plan to Plan

2.??? Seconds, Anyone?

3.??? Norman. Lear, Entrepreneur

4.??? Help Your Employees Lawyer Up!!

5.??? Cavalry Management:? In Charge or In Control?

6.??? Econ ReconPlan to Plan

?

Plan to Plan

This time of year is characterized by the holidays and companies engaging in the annual strategic planning process. The heart of the process is creating a strategy that the plan will execute. But do you have a strategy for creating a strategy?? Do you have a “plan to plan?”

Vistage Strategy speaker Marc Emmer does and in a recent blog post on the Vistage website (this one open to non-members as well) offers some commentary on what CEOs get wrong in the planning process and how to best manage one of the most important aspects of leadership.

Check out Vistage’s Strategic Planning Guide for Leaders and Business Owners. In addition to Emmer’s comments, the blog post offers several downloads to help CEOs lead a creative and coherent process including “Strategic Planning: Identifying Gaps in Your Game.” What are the gaps in yours?

But before you start planning a strategy meeting, do you know what strategy really is? This very short article will define it for you and explain that “Many Strategies Fail Because They’re Not Really Strategies.”

??

Seconds,? anyone?

The concept of “second order” effects got a real boost from the sudden impact of Covid. For example, the pandemic kept us at home; those who could work from him did; those who did often decided to move out of the urban core or to a different state (or country). There are many other examples. The next big thing after Covid, Artificial intelligence, is expected to have its own second order manifestations.

Dr. Scott Galloway in his “No Mercy, No Malice” blog thinks that, as big as OpenAI’s ChatGPT has been, that “another innovation that will also be transformative as its full impact and second-order effects play out. What GPT is to the media, GLP-1 will be to the real economy. “??

What is GLP?

It’s a new class of drug that we may all soon be taking because it addresses a craving, and in many cases an addiction that affects more people than any other “drug.” Dr. Galloway explains it in his blog post? “Seconds.”

??

Norman Lear, Entrepreneur

The pace of change in the past two hundred years would not have been possible without the remarkable advances in communication that began with the telegraph in the 1840s, followed by the telephone, radio, and television. The last two, radio and TV,? in particular accelerated change as it permitted mass communication for the first time in human history. Information, ideas, stories could be shared with millions instantaneously.

Boomers and their parents will remember that TV entertainment fare in the 1950’s and 1960’s was intended to do only that: ?entertain….but certainly not to challenge society’s prevailing norms. If there is any one in the entertainment business whose creativity challenged the prevailing social order TV, it was Norman Lear who died this past week at 101.

Lear is best known as the creator of the groundbreaking “All in the Family” sitcom that explored heretofore forbidden topics like race, religion, politics, and sexuality, artfully delivered as humor that attracted huge audiences that made the show number one for 5 consecutive years.??

“All in the Family”? launched numerous successful spin-offs and inspired a new generation of writers who pursued opportunities of social commentary on cable and the internet.

His story is as compelling as that of any tech entrepreneur and was not without its failures.? Even so, he contributed much to the dialogue of progress that has occurred in the past 50 years.??

One of the oldest definitions of entrepreneurship is lifting “economic resources out of an area of lower area into an area of higher productivity and greater yield.” Norman Lear clearly did that with the sitcom.?? Every entrepreneur should learn more about how “Norman Lear Brought Big Issues to the Small Screen.”

Rest in Peace, Norm Lear; You made us better.

??

Help Your Employees Lawyer Up!

Employers are exploring every option to attract, satisfy and retain employees. A company’s benefit package plays a key role here. Health, vacation, disability, PTO, vacation are all parts of the benefits package that need to be competitive. But there’s one benefit that you might consider that is becoming increasingly popular.

You offer a health plan.? How about a legal plan?

Legal Plans offer support for employees needing the assistance of an attorney. One study found that “found more than two-thirds of today’s employees (67%) have experienced a legal situation in the past five years. So, it’s not surprising that employee interest for legal plans has more than doubled since pre-pandemic (34% in 2023 vs. 16% in 2019).”

This short article form Chief Executive Magazine explains “Why Legal Plans Are Becoming an Increasingly Sought After Benefit.”

??

Cavalry Management:? In Charge, or In Control?

Old movies about the American West would feature the US Army Cavalry as heroes riding to the rescue and establishing outposts to keep the peace on the frontier. ?

Vistage Member and Consultant Les Landes points out the key to an effective Cavalry outpost was not the Colonel in charge but the Scout who was the leader’s eyes and ears. Landes suggests this underscores a useful distinction that made the Cavalry effective: ?the difference between being in command versus being in control. He writes “A valuable lesson for today’s workforce can be learned from a notable exception to the traditional rule of control and command that embodied that long-ago bastion of order and discipline – the U.S. Cavalry.

Are there parallels between the US Cavalry and your organization?

The higher up you get in the organization, the harder it can be to see what really matters. Who is scouting for you? Check out Landes’ brief and interesting blog post:? Scouting for Control.

??

Econ Recon

Slower, not Lower: ?Inflation may be slowing but it’s still moving forward. Dr. Brian Wesbury looks at the money supply increase due to the pandemic and concludes that “huge increase is still wending its way into the economy, and it would be crazy to try to take all that money back out. That would cause a massive deflationary problem. As a result, the general price level is permanently higher than the path it was on pre-COVID.” We’re not done with inflation. Check out his thoughts on Disinflation, Not Deflation. Check out his weekly Three on Thursday post about the S&P 500 Index, the benchmark you may be using to assess your 401K performance.

Interest Rates Dropping: ?ITR Economics’ Brian Beaulieu has a few thoughts on the matter. Check out his blog post Interest Rate Decline in 2024 and his weekly Fedwatch Video.

?

Coming Attractions

Dec. 15 webinar: Preserving your legacy wealth. Hillel L. Presser shares the top 5 mistakes to avoid in preserving your family’s legacy. Register.

Jan. 12 webinar, Business trends for 2024 and beyond. Marc Emmer will recap highlights from his popular Business Trends 2024 series (information and links to the written articles below; item #4) and provide an update based on the latest data and insights. Register.

Thanks for reading. Wishing you a productive week.

?

Sue Tinnish, PhD,?Vistage Chair, Facilitator, & Executive Coach

Find me easily at: 847.404.7325,?[email protected], Twitter:?@STinnish, LinkedIn:??www.dhirubhai.net/in/suetinnish, Website:??https://vistage.com/chairs/sue.tinnish??