Are your eyes on the horizon or your seat belt?

'Flying' your business, can be just the same as flying a plane. You need a clear destination, there is a goal of transporting or retrieving passengers or cargo and your understanding of the resources available to you as well as the weather conditions will affect your outcome. We don't want our business to be like the Manchester United plane crash in Munich in 1958 or the genuine loss to the music industry of Buddy Holly, Richie Valens and the Big Bopper in their light plane crash of 1959. We should be able to plan for a destination and execute the landing.

What should be surprising but isn't is how many businesses are still flying without a flight plan. On top of that, the eyes of key personnel aren't on the metrics that deliver results and the outcome, rather than being uncommon, is extremely common and should make for scary skies in the 'air' of business.

So how do we change the thinking? I want you to be able to think this through in three key areas and see if chipping away at each one makes for a smoother journey. It's yours to change, after all, I don't want to see what's facing these guys out the front window in the photo below.

One of the key concerns that I have when sitting with a small business owner for the first time and asking about their business is often the lack of or depleted vision. Even only 12-24 months into building their new business dream, they have become caught up in the day to day management. Moving from passion projects they did themselves to having to scale with staff and provide oversight to the team has now meant that for many their gaze has lowered considerably. And who wants to be flying with a pilot who's eyes have shifted from the horizon and altimeter to naval gazing at his or her seat belt? What originally was a focused look to the horizon is now concerned with mopping up the mess on the tiles of the business floor.

Wipe your glasses, your vision isn't clear

This is where an intentional set of visual elements in a business can help. Go out there and whether it is through a business coach, staff brain-storming or getting away for a weekend, but whatever your method, write your vision down. Once you know what your Mission, Vision and Values are, make a BIG picture of it where you, your team and your clients can see where you're heading. Even the average plane trip today puts a 'flightpath' map in front of the passengers on their entertainment screen. Malaysian Flight MH370 anyone? An interesting Bible verse on vision writing says; "Write the vision; make it plain on tablets, so he may run who reads it." Habakkuk 2v2. What's interesting is that some versions say write it clearly on tablets (of stone) so that a messenger can run with it and another version says make it big so that those who run by can read it. Either way, clear snappy, punchy and understandable.

What you don't want is a TOS (Top of Shelf) document that is printed three-plus years ago and gathering dust on a shelf or digital dust in your hard drive. Whenever you have one of those 'Why am I doing this?' moments, the answer should be on the wall in front of you. "What's the weather?", look out the window!!

So what can you do to start improving the likelihood of reaching your destination? There are probably three key areas where you can bring sanity to yourself and your team and look at the business as a health check. Notice the next time you go to a Doctor he isn't looking for 100 pieces of information in order to diagnose. The guy isn't holding a Star Trek tricorder, yet! He starts with key indicators that guide the next question. So what thermometer can you use for your business?

The cornerstones of the 'Prime Directive'

Talk to the average 'Trekkie' and they will know about the Prime Directive. Built as a keyhole through which all other decisions are tested, this premise was in place to curb the effect of humanity travelling the cosmos. Do you have a sense or articulated purpose for your business, organisation, department or personal journey? Your opening health question does need to focus on the original vision. Developing a clear Mission, Vision and Values should be foundational. They also provide a cornerstone for review when any big picture concerns have arrived.

Although these cornerstone pieces are often outlined in the previous order I prefer to think of them as Vision, Mission and Values. Your Vision is the future state of 'life', 'business', your customers if your business or organisation does accomplish its key goals. The Mission should be able to articulate 'how' you plan to get there, and finally, the Values provide a set of guidelines of 'how' you will conduct yourself through ethics, methods and culture.

Today, this conversation isn't pointed at how to develop this for your business but to highlight that when the going gets tough the tough need to know where they can find 'solid ground'. Seek it out, develop it, refine, and ensure it is BIG in your sight so it has the BIG PICTURE priority in your day.

An interplanetary map of your market

Travelling through life and business requires a map. Hopefully, one charted by those who have gone before rather than the imagination of authors like J. R. R. Tolkien or George R. R. Martin. Notice a little trend there? I'm changing my name to A. R. R. Pitchford. The reality is that each step in your process or decision-making process can only be tested against a plan or intended destination. Do you think Russell Crowe in Master and Commander, could adjust the sails based on the wind in the middle of a still ocean without knowing where he intended to go and how far he had drifted off course? Of course not! (pun intended)

So whether you are sailing an ocean vessel or like Jean-Luc Picard on the Enterprise, you have a computer bringing up your star maps, there will need to have a reference point for your business performance. Don't ask an aviator with a dodgy instrument panel who's spinning in the Bermuda Triangle to rely on their gut. If one measurement isn't working there should be two or three others that are backups to help guide intent, action and report on progress against your business goals and market conditions.

Again, none of this TOS BS. Your business plan and marketing plan needs to be in hand and understood. Hey, let's go one step further. Another common failing of the new business owner is growing and empowering their team. The old adage, "your strength is your weakness" is never more evident than in the young business owner. Often they have honed their own skills in a particular discipline or craft to the point that they want to risk the employee role and go out on their own. So early on they do it all and sell, manage, produce.

As all things point upwards they start to hire and the process follows the bringing on of people they identify as 'mini-me' versions of themselves. Same aspiration, concepts and DNA. All is well until the business owner needs to take their hand off the wheel. Even with a business or marketing plan in hand, the most common dynamic that flummoxes growth is the appointed department head who is unempowered.

"You can't be held responsible for what you are unaccountable for and you can't be accountable for what you haven't been empowered to deliver."

I once heard a friend articulate it this way. I'm not sure if it was a quote but it surmises this situation well."You can't be held responsible for what you are unaccountable for and you can't be accountable for what you haven't been empowered to deliver." The bottom line for business owners, leaders and managers, don't expect measurable results from someone that hasn't been given the appointment with a clear scope and the empowerment to act within that opportunity.

Our story arc is curving towards the end with both the pain and the triumph

Netflix, Amazon, HULU and every other entertainment platform have a plan. In the words of Rowan Atkinson, "It's a plan so cunning you could put a tail on it and call it a weasel." (Google - Blackadder and A Cunning Plan). Whether the video series works on an episodic format or non-series model, the goal is still to keep you coming back for more. Their subscription model of business relies on it. In the 80s many of the TV series episodes were 'save the day' moments in 42 minutes or less to give us that ad-sponsored hour of television. Now we have binge-worthy television where we save 'part' of the day, and over the course of a 13 episode season, we close the story by tying up the loose ends. Oh, and opening up a new one or two with a season cliff-hanger. "Please renew our series oh great and powerful TV Exec Gods!"

The key in each of these stories is ensuring the audience hangs in long enough to want more and that means only giving them 2-3 threads they need to hold on to that can be closed and give a shot to the frontal lobe of 'Netflixy' satisfaction. Eight to ten minutes from the end of a 42min episode, the disaster will occur, "Oh No!" and four minutes from the end MacGyver has tied two pieces of string, a battery, gummy bear and the inside shoe liner of a pair of Nikes together to form a trap for the crim and save the day, again.

Even in our sales processes, we have to be careful we don't overwhelm the customer with irrelevant information so they can make a decision. So let's circle back to our airline pilot. Imagine the cockpit of the latest Airbus. If it wasn't for all the computer tech handling the 'small stuff', the pilot couldn't possibly fly these behemoths.

So why, when it comes to management and business intelligence dashboards do we try to watch 27 or worse, 51 different metrics and none of them help us avoid the business collision. Take our picture of the aeroplane cockpit again. The standard for many years was to have a Captain, First Officer and a Flight Engineer. The idea was that each is covering each other and in every role, they would be monitoring different highlighted information they are personally responsible for.

So if we want to land another 'episode' in the growth and journey of your business, ask yourself who is in your cockpit and what are the Big 3 for each person. Even more importantly, we need to ask if they are responsible, accountable and empowered and that they know the leeway they have within their role to activate plans to keep the metric within certain top and bottom measurements? Following this thought through. If they are moving outside of the agreed boundaries, who do they report too and how do you as a business respond?

Oh, did I miss something? Yup! The plane the pilots are in charge of has so many background processes running the plane that they can often kick off their shoes for eleven hours between Brisbane and San Francisco to catch up on their own sleep, another season of Mad Men and shoot the breeze with the crew. OK, I'm exaggerating for these guys who are really just responsible for take-off and landing, but you take my point. If you are not focusing on automating your processes and streamlining your systems you do need micro-management, and yet, from the 60s we have these tools that even got us to the moon. You may have heard of them. Computers!!! Invest in your people by investing in the software and computer systems that deliver the ability for your people to focus on their Big 3.

Dr Who will tell you, Time and Space are your friends

Right now, if you made your way through to the end, you're my hero. Thank you Bonnie Tyler. The only way to review or move ahead with checking in on yourself with this is to give yourself time and space.

I've often found that I need to carve out the time twice a year for both personal and work-related reviews of all of these key elements. And I'd love to hear your thoughts. You may be able to add some examples of how you made these ideas work for you, or have some improvements that we can learn from.

Whether you decide to act on any of the examples or ideas I've shared in this 'Flying High' story, the best thing you can do right now is to create some time and space where you can review your goals, systems and then you can ask yourself "Can I still see the 'horizon?" and what do you do next?