you are ready.
If you had to select the five leadership characteristics that you believe are the most important, which would they be?
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Strategic Planning
“If one does not know to which port one is sailing, no wind is favorable.”
Seneca
Strategic Planning is a management tool, period. As with any management tool, strategic planning is used with purpose and that is to help an organization do a better job. It allows an organization and its leaders to focus their energy, to ensure that members of the organization are working toward the same goals and to assess and adjust the organization’s direction in response to a dynamic and complex environment.
Management needs to be prepared to respond rapidly to the ever-changing landscape. Efficiencies, flexibility and benchmarking are part of the new set of rules. With effective planning you can create a framework for strategic management and thinking as you continually ask the question, “Are we doing the right thing?” This entails attention to the big picture and the willingness to adapt to changing circumstances. It consists of the following elements.
•Setting goals and developing an approach to achieving those goals
•Maintaining the clarity and discipline to be productive
•Paying attention to shifting and emerging patterns of behavior and corporate culture
•Making fundamental decisions and choices about what to do, why and how to do it, and then acting
•Shaping and guiding an organization, using resources successfully and focusing on the future
Strategic planning should be a balance between theory and practice, offering you the ability to translate gains in operations and function into sustainable, long-term competitive advantage and value. Recognize that this is a dynamic process and not a one-shot deal. Maintain a solid pace of activity and ensure that staff at every level are informed and involved in providing input. As trust develops, the planning process will help shift the culture in the organization. It goes without saying that management and board commitment must be secured upfront to follow up and follow through on the plans that are created.
Finally, create a balanced scorecard for identifying critical success factors. Specify action steps, outcome measures and accountabilities to track your success.
So, what is planning?
Planning is a comprehensive process that includes setting goals, developing plans and related activities. Planning allows you to reduce uncertainty and facilitate the anticipation and acceptance of change. We create a framework for managerial objectives, opening up multi-directional and multi-tiered communication and setting the stage for smart decision making.
There are other points to consider. Planning also allows you to engage in planned change versus reactive change. Planned change is designed and implemented in an orderly and timely fashion in anticipation of future events. Think about succession planning, business-continuity planning and risk-management planning and start with possible or probable scenarios, such as the CEO will be retiring in two years. These types of planning allow organizations to prepare to meet the challenges and opportunities that the coming and anticipated change may present.
Reactive change, on the other hand, is a piecemeal response to circumstances as they develop. For example, a hurricane has shut down the southeastern office for an indeterminate period of time. Reactive response: Now what do we do?
Planning is also futuristic. It begins in the future and works its way backward toward the present. Whether you are writing a project proposal, planning an office move or celebrating a significant milestone in the life of your organization, you start with the completion or due date and work your way back through the time between then and now. Identify the tasks that need to be accomplished and how you are going to accomplish them.
Finally, your strategic planning process begins with some very basic questions.
•Based upon your assessments of what you know and what you need to do, how do you move forward as an organization, maintaining value for your customers?
•What is the structure and culture that will support what you need to do?
•How are you going to ensure that you are effectively executing your plan?
How do you answer these questions for yourself and your organization?
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Developing the Management Team
“Teams are collections of people who must rely on group collaboration if each member is to experience optimum success and goal achievement.”
William Dyer
No one individual ever has the entire combination of experience, skills and talent that a finely tuned management team can have. Each individual brings his or her own diverse background and perspective to the organizational table working toward a common goal. Management wants to develop and promote an ongoing process that strengthens the ability of the group to provide shared leadership. As a CEO, my goal, for this veteran, talented cohort, is for them to integrate in a way that would create a critical level of quality.
The relationship among team members to each other and the CEO is a critical piece of achieving corporate success. It is essential for there to be trust among team members; for their overall effectiveness, both individually and collectively, to be optimal; for their ability to think strategically and act tactically to be expanded; and for accountability to be enhanced.
Begin with Expectations.
I believe in expectations. A leader should work hard to make sure that expectations are clearly stated and support the vision. If you can articulate thoughts and ideas consistently and with as much precision as possible, you can greatly reduce ambiguity, as well as the potential for misinterpretation and error.
People need to know what the expectations are. Clarify and communicate exactly how you define the spectrum of results, from successful to unacceptable. This includes what matters to your organization.
Next, in order to get the job done what resources do you need? As a manager and supervisor, I always ask, “What can I do to help? What do you need from me? What resources can I provide or secure for you in the way of information, training, contacts or time?”
I listen carefully to the answers I get to these questions. Sometimes folks will go off and accomplish what they need to on their own; sometimes they require more time and direction. If I don’t know which they need, I cannot be effectively supportive as their leader and then someone may potentially fail. Therefore, we always need to pay attention and be prepared to take our lead from others.
Finally, what are the consequences, implications, benefits and/or rewards of meeting those expectations or not meeting
