As
important as creating a great plan is in achieving business goals, many shops
need to shift their emphasis to the execution of the plan. The execution step
is not a glamourous as creating a brilliant plan. What’s more, it takes much more
effort. Writing a plan may only take a few days of brainstorming. On the other
hand, executing a plan is a daily activity. It’s where the hard work really occurs.
Plan
Your Work, Work Your Plan
Execution
is difficult because it requires everyone to focus on those activities that are
important to your strategy rather than react to the urgent but not necessarily
important. These urgent demands on time often become proverbial Chinese fire
drills that distract from the company goal.
In
many cases execution requires good time management skills. Here are some skills
you should develop:
•
Get in the habit of creating a daily “things to do” list. Many people write
their list at the beginning of the day. What’s better is to plan tomorrow’s
work at the end of today’s workday.
•
After you have assembled the list, prioritize your activities based on their importance
to your company goals. Avoid those unimportant activities that waste time. These
are generally activities that you want to do, but do not need to do. In most
cases, you should simply scratch off any unimportant tasks from your list.
You
cannot do everything. If you don’t have the resources to work on something, scratch
it off of your “to do” list. In fact, you should eliminate all activities that
do not align with your goals.
•
When you get to the shop, focus on the most important tasks. These are the
activities that align with your company’s primary goals and which will produce
the greatest results. The temptation for most people is to work on tasks which
are the easiest to do. Completing these tasks give you a false sense of
accomplishment.
In
many cases the most important tasks are the most difficult and usually the
tasks that people act upon last. If possible, you should delegate the less consequential
activities to subordinates.
If
you know your associates well, you know their strengths and weaknesses. With this
in mind, you should know what you can and cannot delegate to them.
If
you know an associate’s weakness, you can coach them to improve their performance.
If you know their professional aspirations, you can mentor them as they work
toward their goals.
Herding Cats
In working
with teams getting everyone on the same page is often difficult, especially
when working with creative people. Focusing the attention of strong-willed
individuals is like herding cats.
Some
feel that you shouldn’t even try. Just give your cats an assignment and a
deadline and let them do their own thing. If you are independent by nature, a
cat so to speak, it’s hard to disagree with this approach. That is, if you
achieve the results that you want.
Teams are often more effective in
following through on a plan, if allowed some degree of autonomy in how tasks
are accomplished. Often some associates assume leadership roles. Team members
can exert pressure on their peers to take responsibility for an assignment and get
the job done. What’s more, peer pressure provides more motivation and less
resentment than having a boss micromanage his employees.
Your
Role as a Coach. Not everyone can work independently. Some require
a little more structure. That’s not to say that you should micromanage your employees
– not at all. Instead, as a shop owner or manager, you need to act as a coach
and mentor.
Coaching your employees as they participate in achieving goals is not a part time
activity. To be an effective coach, you need work on it daily. As a manager and
coach, here are the steps that you need to take:
•
Define the Goals. As a manager you need to explain the company goals and
describe what you are doing in each phase of the plan.
•
Listen. Remember the advice of Dr. Stephen Covey, the author of 7
Habits of Highly Effective People, “Seek first to understand, then to be
understood”. If you want your team to focus on the business’ goals and take ownership
of for their role in achieving them, you need to involve them in the process. One
way to do that, is to solicit their input on all aspects of your strategy,
including the plans for achieving those goals; their responsibilities in executing
the plan; and what metrics you will use to measure the performance of the team.
•
Preparing the Plan. Based on the input from the workers in your shop and
other business associates formulate your plan. In preparing your execution plan, leave nothing to chance or
interpretation. Divide each major action step into its principal
activities that you need to complete or accomplish.
Specificity is critical in describing
tasks. The plan should outline what needs to be done, when must the task be
completed, who is responsible. You also need to explain how you will use to monitor
performance.
You execution plan should
also identify any resources or any changes in your shop operations needed to
accomplish your business objectives needed to implement the plan.
To achieve the best the results, managers
need to listen to the input from their employees and provide them with positive
reinforcement. Words of encouragement usually work better than criticism and
intimidation.
• Communication. It makes no
sense for you to keep your grand business strategy a secret that you only share
with a select few. Instead, you should make your formal execution plan available
for everyone in your shop to review.
The key is to keep it simple. Your written business plans should be short, to the point and easy to read. After reading your plan,
no one should have any question of what needs to be done and who is responsible
for doing it.
In discussing the plan with your
associates, you need to communicate how each action step or activity links to a key company goal. For example,
a sales manager should explain the importance of making a required number of
prospecting calls to the shop’s annual sales goal.
Reinforce your messaging about your goals,
plans and activities as often as you can. In production planning, you may need to
remind your associates of the importance of better job layout to improve
material utilization and reduce scrap. In sales and marketing, you may need to reiterate
the significance of increasing website traffic; producing new content each week
for the company website and blog; making prospecting calls or generating
estimates.
How effective you are in communicating the
hopes and dreams for your shop will greatly depend on the relationships that
you have developed with your associates. For this reason, you should work on building
strong connections with these people.
Successful
communication also hinges on the passion that you demonstrate in working on
your business strategy. You cannot expect employees or team members to
be excited about the company vision or a project, if you aren’t excited yourself.
A real passion for the business is contagious. Your enthusiasm can create a bond
with your employees and serve as a catalyst for a team to gel.
• Maintain Focus. Most plans
fail, not because the business plans are flawed, but that the participants in the plan
don’t focus. Instead, the action steps are treated as extracurricular activities
that you sometimes do when you have time. In order for the plan to come
together, you need to consider them as primary responsibilities of the job. Attention
to key action items of your strategic plans demands continual attention.
• Measurement and Accountability. Success in executing your business plans depends on holding the people responsible for the action steps in your plan and
accountable for the outcomes. For this reason, you must continually track the progress
toward accomplishing tasks on time through weekly or monthly reporting.
When I managed the sales and marketing
program at a graphics company, we tracked our progress each week by running a
report for the company owners. This report recorded the number of new records
added to the dbase; the number of prospecting calls made; and the number of
direct mail packages sent. The report also tracked the activities of the sales people.
Reporting ensured accountability of those responsible for specific activities.
In sales
a rolling forecast is another method of tracking performance. The forecast for your
shop should indicate the sales potential by salesperson, the probability and
forecasted sales amount for a specific period.
Using
a forecast tells a manager if the shop’s sales and marketing strategy is
working or needs work. That way you can
quickly identify problems and take corrective action. For example, tracking
sales activity can alert you to a downturn in the economy or the entry of a new
competitor in your market.
Forecasting
provides you with an early warning system, so you can redirect your sales
resources to adapt to changes in the business environment as well as providing
you ample time to improve your sales process. Failure to maintain a forecast
can result a failure to recognize weaknesses in your operation and formidable competitive
threats.
• Provide Motivation. If you are a
business owner or manager, execution requires you to motivate others as well as
oversee and assist them in their progress to get their jobs done.
To get the most from your associates, you
should set the bar high. You should connect these high standards that you
demand with key company activities, such as lowering your scrap rate, reducing
returns and allowances, or cutting shop and administrative costs.
When
your associates produce the results that you demand, you need to acknowledge
their efforts. You can show your appreciation in many different ways. Recognition of a job well done is often just
as important as a monetary incentive. One
of Abraham Maslow’s hierarchy of needs is the need to feel accomplishment.
As
your company works toward a goal, a visual display helps everyone to keep their
eyes on the prize and to sustain motivation. If your sales budget
is $1 million in annual sales, a wall chart showing the shop’s monthly growth
in revenue is a daily reminder of your goal.
Taking action doesn’t take a genius.
Instead, it requires everyone involved in a project has the discipline to complete
tasks according to deadlines set.
Related Articles
In developing a business strategy,
the two steps prior to the execution stage are to set your goals and then
develop your plan. These two steps are covered in earlier blog posts:
Setting
Goals for Your Business
© 2021 Jim Hingst, All Rights Reserved