The Goal of a Plan is Not to Say You Have a Plan

I have written a lot about planning. I believe it is one of the most important things any leader can do. It sounds so simple, yet can be one of the more challenging aspects of every leader’s role. The seeming simplicity of it becomes a vexing challenge to understand what a plan is and why you need it. It begins with recognizing that planning cannot be done for the sake of planning. There is a reason to make the time to define well-defined plans for what you want to accomplish.

Goal-setting, strategy, and planning all feel very similar. However, there are significant differences between the three. All are necessary, and each work together to help achieve a stated outcome. This article will speak more to the reason for planning, but understand it works with each of the others. Knowing that we are approaching the end of the year, many leaders are building plans for the coming year. There are likely goal-setting sessions happening as well. Now seems like a good time to review the value of having a plan.

Whether you are thinking about your current plan or a longer-term strategy, the author of the Harvard Business Review Article The Big Lie of Strategic Planning states:

The objective is not to eliminate risk, but to increase the odds of success.

There is no foolproof, perfect plan to be had. Most plans will require additional work and adjustments along the way. Depending on your situation, you’ll likely want multiple plans ready for implementation for your desired outcome. The proverbial ‘Plan A’ and ‘Plan B’ are helpful approaches to most challenges.

I have often shared Eisenhower’s quote, “Plans are worthless, planning is essential.” The process of planning becomes the most important element of the planning stages. Done well, it identifies the information and likely scenarios you will face in your quest to achieve your stated outcome. It’s about working through what needs to be done, about looking at options, about thinking through obstacles, then determining first and potential next steps. Let’s break this down into smaller steps for building your plan.

Purpose

What do you want to accomplish? Every plan needs to begin with this basic step. Have you clearly defined what you want to achieve, and what that looks like? You’ll likely want to think about why this is critical to help align your team around the process steps to implement the plan. Without the clearly articulated outcome, it will be difficult, if not impossible, to have the right steps in place to get to where you want to end up.

This can connect to your goal at this point. If you are building a plan on how to achieve the goal you have set for yourself or your team, you’ll understand the purpose of what your plan will take you towards.

Process

What steps do you need to take to achieve the outcome you have defined in the step above? In this stage, you’ll want to identify the potential obstacles and challenges you’ll face. This is also where you’ll determine the needed resources for the plan. Resources in this case can be people, money, time, equipment, or other support functions.

You should end with clear steps on what you need to do to achieve the expectations you have set for your team. And, as I mentioned above, this stage is where you can determine whether you need multiple potential plans. Building ‘what if’ scenarios can be helpful in planning through potential decision points or changes in short-term outcomes. This gives you immediate flexibility. Similar to a quarterback calling an audible after the initial play was called in football, your Plan B can quickly be called into action if the situation warrants.

Performance

Are you achieving the expected outcomes along the way? From your process step above, you’ll need milestones to understand whether the plan is working or not. The performance step is all about measurement and decision-making. What is the data telling you? What adjustments might need to be made? Continual evaluation is necessary to ensure you are on track for your outcomes. Depending on the complexity of your plan and circumstances, the frequency of the performance measurement should be adjusted.

Your process step will need to include the measurements you want to have in place, so you can determine the progress on your plan towards achieving the results. The performance step is also where you’ll evaluate the resource performance as well. Is the team achieving their expectations? What coaching may be required? Is the funding or equipment sufficient? Do you require more of either of those? If so, how are you justifying that? Are there alternative approaches to maintain cost and productivity budgets? Based on the answers to these questions, you may switch to a different plan already identified, or you may need to return to the process step and build new steps to get back on track.

Saying you have a plan is one thing. Having a well thought out plan that clearly defines the desired outcome (purpose), with clear steps on how you will achieve that (process), and knowing that you are on track (performance) is much different. Restating the key theme here, the goal of a plan is not to say you have a plan, it is to have the specific steps with clarity to achieve a defined outcome. Effective planning requires a time investment, partnerships, and discipline to work through the details and have options for achieving your goals. Don’t let the simplicity of it fool you. Planning will make the difference between occasional success, and sustained high performance.

How can you use these three steps to build a more effective planning process for yourself and your team?

Join other retail leaders in continuing their development journey with Effective Retail Leader.com. SUBSCRIBE today to receive leadership tips directly to your inbox and monthly newsletters that provide many tools to help further develop your leadership skills. JOIN NOW!

Photo by Tim Schmidbauer on Unsplash