In fact, clients of The Birch Group are doing quite nicely, thank you very much!
This article has an important lesson that can make your future brighter, too.
_____________________________________________________
Did no one see this coming?
Earlier this year, the economy was chugging happily along. There was no financial Nostradamus predicting the coming financial melt-down we’re currently experiencing.
For all intents and purposes, it’s fair to say the US government was not telling us (until fairly recently) that there were ‘really, really bad economic times’ just around the corner.
Was this economic situation we’re all now so painfully aware of something we could have seen? Or, should have seen coming? If so, why didn’t we take some sage advice from Nike and “Just DO it” . . . whatever ‘it’ would have been to forestall the inevitable and certainly undesirable situation that developed for the US economy?
Could we have been more pro-active about the economy? Would our situation have been different than it is now? Personally, I’d like to believe that, if we – US citizens and government alike – had truly understood the coming economic crisis we’re in the middle of, we would have done something sooner rather than later.
Of course, I’m an optimist and I’d like to think that the economic mess we’ve found ourselves in the middle of was not something we could have seen coming. But, if it was, would we have been able to do anything about it?
Many questions. Fewer answers. I cringe at even bringing up the Economy because it feeds the ‘doom and gloom’ mentality that actually prevents all of us from going through the ‘denial’ and ‘anger’ stages, embracing the inevitable ‘depression’ that follows and moving into the ‘acceptance’ of our situation which is the basis for our ‘re-commitment’ to take actions, which when exercised, will improve our national economy and personal situations.
Was it preventable?
At some level, I’m sure it was. Whether it was predictable and therefore preventable is open to discussion. Regardless, what the current economic situation re-minds us is that there IS a cause for every effect we experience whether that effect could be seen coming at us like a twister in Kansas or, not.
It’s about cause and effect – understand the one and you control the other
In physics, you learned that for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. As a child, you learned that your actions do have consequences. Not necessarily bad (e.g. “stay in school, get a degree and you’ll probably make a decent living later on”) and not necessarily good, either (e.g. “drinking and driving do NOT mix well!”).
In business, there is also a ‘cause’ for every ‘effect’ we experience. Unfortunately, we don’t always understand the connection. Consequently, we’re likely to repeat the same effects over and over again until we do.
The good news is that most of us DO learn the causes behind the effects we create (e.g. when I put my hand on the hot stove it isn’t good!) and act accordingly in the future -- usually in a way that makes us better for the lessons we experienced earlier in life.
I don’t wish to dwell on the economy any longer than is necessary to make these points:
OK, trick question. Like my friend’s daughter told her mother after being asked, “Why did the cops find you car at 3 AM and you weren’t in it?” . . . “Mom, it’s complicated”.
But I know one factor that will be increasingly cited as a reason for the success or failure of a business in this economy is the creation and use of a strategic plan to guide the management of a business to make decisions and take actions that foster success.
In your company or organization, having a plan . . . not just setting arbitrary goals without the benefit of a strategic planning process . . . is a contributing factor in the success that will become increasingly desirable yet difficult to achieve.
The Birch Group . . . Strategic Planning At Its Best
I recently had the pleasure of meeting with John Birch, president of The Birch Group on this very topic. John’s been in management as an officer of one of America’s largest insurance companies and, since 1997 has run a highly successful consulting practice that lists both local municipalities, the state of Connecticut as well as a significant number of small to mid-sized companies as clients.
John’s developed his own unique and highly effective approach for helping groups of people create and implement a strategic planning process that means business. Literally!
It’s deceptively simple. And amazingly potent. If you want a practical approach to making things happen in your company, consider the following elements John uses:
Mission
The first thing you want to do is to become crystal clear about why your organization exists – as the people it serves would describe it to one another. Clarifying your mission is the basis for creating coherency between the decisions you make and the actions you take to fulfill the mission of your business or organization.
Critical Success Factors
Once you know why your business exists, you can identify factors that are essential to fulfilling your mission. These vary with each business, but involve a number of internal and external elements that, if not present or effective, will compromise your mission.
Environmental Scan
After you define why you exist and what is required to fulfill that mission, you look at what is (or, is not) happening both in as well as outside of your business that may limit your ability to utilize your critical success factors as you must to achieve your mission.
Develop Major Strategies
Your mission suggests what these will be. It may be developing your distribution channel, your products and services, your people, etc. Basically, these are anything that can make or break your mission.
Identify Gaps
Once you know what ‘should’ be happening, use your environmental scan to identify discrepancies against what ‘is’ happening. These gaps are the basis for the next step.
Set Objectives
This is a key step in John’s process. Unlike setting goals without a context, these objectives define a position that, once accomplished, means a performance gap in salient areas of your business will be reduced significantly or eliminated completely.
Develop Action Plans
If your mission and key objectives are strategic, your action plans are supremely tactical. They form the basis of activities that drive your business toward the progressive realization of your mission. As simple as who does what and when these basic plans
are the glue that causes mundane activities to help you realize a magnificent mission.
Monitor Performance
On this last point, John said something most interesting, “Making a plan invites failure”. “Huh” I said. I asked him to explain. “Simple. Your plan is a point of reference to compare what you expect to happen against what actually does happen. The moment you create a plan, you have something to compare your reality-of-the-moment against. Thus, you also have the basis for a discrepancy” I had to agree with his logic. “Well, if you have no plan . . . no here’s-what-I-expect-or-want-to-happen . . . you have no basis for comparison. You also have no basis for a discrepancy or ‘failure’, do you?” Again, I had to agree. “But remember, while having a plan makes it possible to ‘fail’ to do what you expected, it is also the mechanism by which you eventually ‘succeed’ at doing what you planned to do in the first place – i.e. fulfill your mission”. I asked him for an example. “Bill, you’re a pilot (private with an instrument rating) right? So you know that when you’re landing, you start your ‘final approach’ at a certain altitude and distance away from the runway where you ‘plan’ to land, right?” True enough. “But once you begin the approach, you may go over a newly plowed field which heats up and causes the air above it to rise and you have to either reduce your power or adjust your attitude (of the plane, not the pilot!) or you might overshoot your landing point, right? Or, you may go over a river that cools the air above it and makes you sink below your planned approach and you need to add power or you may not make the runway at all, right?” At this point, I began to appreciate what John was saying about monitoring performance of a plan once it’s underway. Without an intention . . . without a mission and the goals that are the ‘stepping stones’ to reaching it, you have no way to answer the question, “How am I doing?”. But, once you do, you also have a basis for comparing your actual performance against your planned performance. Then, if you’re not where you want to be when you want to be there . . . enroute to achieving your overall mission . . . you can be a failure . . . but only temporarily . . . as you’re enroute to being successful”. Makes sense to me.
John added, “Failing to succeed isn’t a bad thing . . . it’s expected! The only time you should be concerned about a ‘failure’ if when you don’t complete your plan and achieve the mission you set out to achieve in the first place.”
A business is a dynamic, evolving entity. At any moment, like a snapshot, it may not be quite as you like (or, planned!). But that’s a snapshot in time. Success in life and business is more of a movie that changes over time than a snapshot that’s frozen in one place forever.
Epilogue:
After I left John I found myself feeling exceptionally positive. He reminded me that doing things by design (i.e. planning to do something) rather than accident (hoping it happens and not much else) invariably turns out better than when I don’t that.
Today’s economy can rock your world. As John reminded me, “Tough times are like stones in your path . . . they’ll either grind you down or polish you up. The outcome you get reflects the decisions you make and the actions you take.”
Did no one see this coming?
Earlier this year, the economy was chugging happily along. There was no financial Nostradamus predicting the coming financial melt-down we’re currently experiencing.
For all intents and purposes, it’s fair to say the US government was not telling us (until fairly recently) that there were ‘really, really bad economic times’ just around the corner.
Was this economic situation we’re all now so painfully aware of something we could have seen? Or, should have seen coming? If so, why didn’t we take some sage advice from Nike and “Just DO it” . . . whatever ‘it’ would have been to forestall the inevitable and certainly undesirable situation that developed for the US economy?
Could we have been more pro-active about the economy? Would our situation have been different than it is now? Personally, I’d like to believe that, if we – US citizens and government alike – had truly understood the coming economic crisis we’re in the middle of, we would have done something sooner rather than later.
Of course, I’m an optimist and I’d like to think that the economic mess we’ve found ourselves in the middle of was not something we could have seen coming. But, if it was, would we have been able to do anything about it?
Many questions. Fewer answers. I cringe at even bringing up the Economy because it feeds the ‘doom and gloom’ mentality that actually prevents all of us from going through the ‘denial’ and ‘anger’ stages, embracing the inevitable ‘depression’ that follows and moving into the ‘acceptance’ of our situation which is the basis for our ‘re-commitment’ to take actions, which when exercised, will improve our national economy and personal situations.
Was it preventable?
At some level, I’m sure it was. Whether it was predictable and therefore preventable is open to discussion. Regardless, what the current economic situation re-minds us is that there IS a cause for every effect we experience whether that effect could be seen coming at us like a twister in Kansas or, not.
It’s about cause and effect – understand the one and you control the other
In physics, you learned that for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. As a child, you learned that your actions do have consequences. Not necessarily bad (e.g. “stay in school, get a degree and you’ll probably make a decent living later on”) and not necessarily good, either (e.g. “drinking and driving do NOT mix well!”).
In business, there is also a ‘cause’ for every ‘effect’ we experience. Unfortunately, we don’t always understand the connection. Consequently, we’re likely to repeat the same effects over and over again until we do.
The good news is that most of us DO learn the causes behind the effects we create (e.g. when I put my hand on the hot stove it isn’t good!) and act accordingly in the future -- usually in a way that makes us better for the lessons we experienced earlier in life.
I don’t wish to dwell on the economy any longer than is necessary to make these points:
- Whatever situation you find yourself in, there are reasons or causes for it
- You may or may not have seen, understood or acted to prevent or avoid them
- Regardless, you will experience the consequences of whatever causes you allow to operate whether it is through ignorance or indolence
- Every consequence that has a cause can be avoided if you address the cause
OK, trick question. Like my friend’s daughter told her mother after being asked, “Why did the cops find you car at 3 AM and you weren’t in it?” . . . “Mom, it’s complicated”.
But I know one factor that will be increasingly cited as a reason for the success or failure of a business in this economy is the creation and use of a strategic plan to guide the management of a business to make decisions and take actions that foster success.
In your company or organization, having a plan . . . not just setting arbitrary goals without the benefit of a strategic planning process . . . is a contributing factor in the success that will become increasingly desirable yet difficult to achieve.
The Birch Group . . . Strategic Planning At Its Best
I recently had the pleasure of meeting with John Birch, president of The Birch Group on this very topic. John’s been in management as an officer of one of America’s largest insurance companies and, since 1997 has run a highly successful consulting practice that lists both local municipalities, the state of Connecticut as well as a significant number of small to mid-sized companies as clients.
John’s developed his own unique and highly effective approach for helping groups of people create and implement a strategic planning process that means business. Literally!
It’s deceptively simple. And amazingly potent. If you want a practical approach to making things happen in your company, consider the following elements John uses:
Mission
The first thing you want to do is to become crystal clear about why your organization exists – as the people it serves would describe it to one another. Clarifying your mission is the basis for creating coherency between the decisions you make and the actions you take to fulfill the mission of your business or organization.
Critical Success Factors
Once you know why your business exists, you can identify factors that are essential to fulfilling your mission. These vary with each business, but involve a number of internal and external elements that, if not present or effective, will compromise your mission.
Environmental Scan
After you define why you exist and what is required to fulfill that mission, you look at what is (or, is not) happening both in as well as outside of your business that may limit your ability to utilize your critical success factors as you must to achieve your mission.
Develop Major Strategies
Your mission suggests what these will be. It may be developing your distribution channel, your products and services, your people, etc. Basically, these are anything that can make or break your mission.
Identify Gaps
Once you know what ‘should’ be happening, use your environmental scan to identify discrepancies against what ‘is’ happening. These gaps are the basis for the next step.
Set Objectives
This is a key step in John’s process. Unlike setting goals without a context, these objectives define a position that, once accomplished, means a performance gap in salient areas of your business will be reduced significantly or eliminated completely.
Develop Action Plans
If your mission and key objectives are strategic, your action plans are supremely tactical. They form the basis of activities that drive your business toward the progressive realization of your mission. As simple as who does what and when these basic plans
are the glue that causes mundane activities to help you realize a magnificent mission.
Monitor Performance
On this last point, John said something most interesting, “Making a plan invites failure”. “Huh” I said. I asked him to explain. “Simple. Your plan is a point of reference to compare what you expect to happen against what actually does happen. The moment you create a plan, you have something to compare your reality-of-the-moment against. Thus, you also have the basis for a discrepancy” I had to agree with his logic. “Well, if you have no plan . . . no here’s-what-I-expect-or-want-to-happen . . . you have no basis for comparison. You also have no basis for a discrepancy or ‘failure’, do you?” Again, I had to agree. “But remember, while having a plan makes it possible to ‘fail’ to do what you expected, it is also the mechanism by which you eventually ‘succeed’ at doing what you planned to do in the first place – i.e. fulfill your mission”. I asked him for an example. “Bill, you’re a pilot (private with an instrument rating) right? So you know that when you’re landing, you start your ‘final approach’ at a certain altitude and distance away from the runway where you ‘plan’ to land, right?” True enough. “But once you begin the approach, you may go over a newly plowed field which heats up and causes the air above it to rise and you have to either reduce your power or adjust your attitude (of the plane, not the pilot!) or you might overshoot your landing point, right? Or, you may go over a river that cools the air above it and makes you sink below your planned approach and you need to add power or you may not make the runway at all, right?” At this point, I began to appreciate what John was saying about monitoring performance of a plan once it’s underway. Without an intention . . . without a mission and the goals that are the ‘stepping stones’ to reaching it, you have no way to answer the question, “How am I doing?”. But, once you do, you also have a basis for comparing your actual performance against your planned performance. Then, if you’re not where you want to be when you want to be there . . . enroute to achieving your overall mission . . . you can be a failure . . . but only temporarily . . . as you’re enroute to being successful”. Makes sense to me.
John added, “Failing to succeed isn’t a bad thing . . . it’s expected! The only time you should be concerned about a ‘failure’ if when you don’t complete your plan and achieve the mission you set out to achieve in the first place.”
A business is a dynamic, evolving entity. At any moment, like a snapshot, it may not be quite as you like (or, planned!). But that’s a snapshot in time. Success in life and business is more of a movie that changes over time than a snapshot that’s frozen in one place forever.
Epilogue:
After I left John I found myself feeling exceptionally positive. He reminded me that doing things by design (i.e. planning to do something) rather than accident (hoping it happens and not much else) invariably turns out better than when I don’t that.
Today’s economy can rock your world. As John reminded me, “Tough times are like stones in your path . . . they’ll either grind you down or polish you up. The outcome you get reflects the decisions you make and the actions you take.”
As the economy challenges you to make smarter choices and take decisive actions to market your business, remember that these are times when 'good enough' won't be! And the more you PLAN to make your success happen, the more likely it is to turn out as you . . . well, planned. Hey, now THAT . . . sounds like a good plan to me!
________________________________________________________
John Birch believes organizations are living entities. They grow, thrive or whither on the vine reflecting their management's ability to plan and develop a highly skilled and motivated workforce to meet the competitive and financial pressures of today's global economy and changing workforce demographics. To learn more about John and his unique planning process, visit: www.thebirchgroup.com
________________________________________________________
Bill Doerr, CCO of SellMore Marketing, LLC is the creator of The Preferral Prospecting System™, The Expert Directory™, The Client Machine™ and The Ultimate Client Development System™. He is an Authorized Duct Tape Marketing Coach and a licensed facilitator of the Get Clients NOW! program. Bill uses these resources to help service providers generate more awareness in their marketing area, interest in their services, and revenues in their bank. You can reach Bill by phone at: 860-798-6964, online: www.sellmoremarketing.com by email: billd@sellmoremarketing.com or through the TNNW Blog: http://thenationalnetworker.blogspot.com
________________________________________________________
Posted to THE NATIONAL NETWORKER. To subscribe for your free newletter, go to www.TheNationalNetworker.com. For the complete National Networker Relationship Capital Toolkit and a free RSS feed, go to: http://thenationalnetworkerweblog.blogspot.com.
________________________________________________________
John Birch believes organizations are living entities. They grow, thrive or whither on the vine reflecting their management's ability to plan and develop a highly skilled and motivated workforce to meet the competitive and financial pressures of today's global economy and changing workforce demographics. To learn more about John and his unique planning process, visit: www.thebirchgroup.com
________________________________________________________
Bill Doerr, CCO of SellMore Marketing, LLC is the creator of The Preferral Prospecting System™, The Expert Directory™, The Client Machine™ and The Ultimate Client Development System™. He is an Authorized Duct Tape Marketing Coach and a licensed facilitator of the Get Clients NOW! program. Bill uses these resources to help service providers generate more awareness in their marketing area, interest in their services, and revenues in their bank. You can reach Bill by phone at: 860-798-6964, online: www.sellmoremarketing.com by email: billd@sellmoremarketing.com or through the TNNW Blog: http://thenationalnetworker.blogspot.com
________________________________________________________
Posted to THE NATIONAL NETWORKER. To subscribe for your free newletter, go to www.TheNationalNetworker.com. For the complete National Networker Relationship Capital Toolkit and a free RSS feed, go to: http://thenationalnetworkerweblog.blogspot.com.
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