These are lessons-learned helpful to any manager and entrepreneur.
On my desk there is a wooden pencil box with the following words carved on its sliding cover: “An Idea is Not a Plan”. This is a gift presented to me by one of my direct reports during my transition as the Chief Innovations Officer in charge of implementing the expansion strategy of the business. This subtle reminder of fundamental truth is what allowed me to focus on the best ideas to reach results quickly.
The fact that the protégé was reminding her mentor that the path to results was to focus on them should illustrate the tendency in all of us – regardless of experience and track records – to let dreaming, brainstorming, and visioning, become the end-all in the innovation process. This little pencil box served me well as I reflected on how my teams had achieved tangible results in my career.
Throughout my career as an engineer and internal consultant, I was fortunate to be embedded in cross-functional teams supported by some of the best consulting firms in the world. Our mission was to train folks to get traction toward results. As an executive in our corporation, I mentored and led many organizations that sought to improve or launch new initiatives in the market. One of our keys was to be vigilant that all our efforts were moving us closer to the expected results.
An Idea is not a Plan.
Figuring out what to do to grow, fix, disrupt, or innovate is not easy.
Figuring out what to do to grow, fix, disrupt, or innovate is not easy. The idea generation process is something that requires a disciplined approach so that the idea grows into a vision of the future. A strong idea with the potential to deliver results is to be cherished. But that is only the first step.
Whether as a facilitator in a problem-solving workshop or a management leader seeking new business enterprises, I have been fascinated with the ability of groups to born creative solutions. There is a point where ideas begin to flow, cataloged, and evaluated for implementation.
Idea generation and refinement is an extremely fun and exciting stage in innovation or improvement. The process leads you to actually “see” the future as if it had been built already. And while this is an important component to arming you and your team with the resolve to go for it, it also comes with the danger of creating a sense of “completeness” that creates the fallacy of feeling “done”.
I have met many entrepreneurs and managers that sit at this stage of “done” with a winning idea examined and praised endlessly. In my case, we had several ideas and initiatives that could deliver significant growth to our bottom line. But the sheer volume of the ideas prevented us from making us move in any direction. I had to figure out how to move us from exciting ideas into planning our reinvention.
The solution is to be practical and judicious in assigning resources to each idea. We rated each idea’s potential benefit and required effort. In the effort category, we considered all resources needed including personnel, time, and money. The process led us to prioritize and align ideas with the strategic plan of the corporation. Once focused, we knew we needed to create a roadmap to implement: a plan.
A Plan is Not Action
I have participated in all kinds of planning scenarios: Strategic, Business, Operations, and Project Planning. The level of detail for each of the planning scenarios varied tremendously spanning from a few broad level stages in evolution to the minute detail captured in a Gantt chart. The common thread in all these exercises has been the same: there is a strong sense of accomplishment when an idea is transformed into a deliverable with a timeline and assigned resources. Yet, once again, this sense of accomplishment brings back the fallacious sense of being done.
As an auditor in the nuclear industry, I encountered situations where auditees had prepared plans to correct an issue that I had identified. The plans were well-thought-out and clearly identified a timeline for completion. Yet when evaluated against the reality lived in the field it was clear that little to no action had been taken to implement the plan.
I have seen start-up entrepreneurs preferring to ad-lib daily operations than unshelfing the well-thought-out operational plans they spent time and resources developing.
I have seen the same in young entrepreneurs who create a plan yet fail to implement it preferring to ad-lib daily operations. There is nothing wrong with flexibility and adaptability to conditions. But there are real risks in making plans for the sake of planning or abandoning plans under the banner of flexibility.
Planning is a discipline that is key to any organization. If done correctly, the planning process creates the platform to support action by all the resources outlined within it. It teaches all to get aligned towards a common objective. Planning ought to lead all to act towards results.
Action is not Results
One of the distinguishable traits of the corporate culture at AM Inc is an incredible work ethic. Across all departments, everyone works hard. We attacked problems rapidly and closed gaps in performance with zealous intent. Yet, often we found ourselves challenged with recurring situations despite the hard work. This situation is not endemic to AM Inc. In fact, judging from the myriad of programs and books about how to get traction when stuck, the challenge for all organizations is to ensure that actions are efficient and effective in achieving short- and long-term objectives.
One of the key principles in Kaizen, the philosophy of continuous improvement, is to constantly evaluate the results of our actions. To do so, we rely on management to evaluate work done against results achieved and not only work done against work planned.
It is imperative that leaders, in all levels, constantly review progress towards results.
It is imperative that leaders at all levels review progress towards results. Unfortunately, the natural tendency is to become simple shepherds of the production plan without asking the basic questions that lead to consistent good results and growth:
- Is the way we are working making a difference?
- Could we do this better?
- Should we be doing this at all? Has this work become obsolete?
- What are the actions we are missing?
- Is all this work getting us closer to our goal?
It is my experience that periodically requiring answers to these questions of oneself and the leaders in the organization is what keeps a company young and flexible. Personally, it is a way for me to honor the hard work of all the employees by ensuring that actions are aligned towards the goals of the organization and little to no effort is spent on obsolete or inconsequential actions.
At the entrepreneur level, I have met restaurant owners who see their places rapidly descend into irrecoverable financial crises despite all their own hard work. This is despite the owner’s incredibly busy workload.
Actions don’t lead to results unless they are the right actions at the right time. – F. Barillas
For the restaurant business, there are two fundamental issues that demand paramount attention: Food quality and superb customer satisfaction. No actions in the social media environment, the façade or décor of the place, or information technology could ever compensate for failure in those two aspects. They are the core of the business and actions taken there will give you the product to offer the market. Understanding this is critical: your business is food and service – an experience. This demands of you and your staff actions that make the best experience possible reality for every customer. Do not let other actions usurp your focus from the fundamentals.
Results are Results
To complement the wooden box reminding me of focusing on results I have a streamlined dashboard with all our corporate key indicators both leading and historical. Our financial, marketing, HRM, and OAM expenses targets are displayed on my dashboard. These are the things that continually maintain our leader and management team focused on results. My recommendation to every entrepreneur is to develop their own dashboard to manage the business towards results.
An idea is not a plan. A plan is not action. Actions are not results. Results are results. – F. Barillas
At every stage of the process of doing, we could fall into traps that prevent objectives to be completed, ironically feeling accomplished the entire time. As a leader, you must be aware of the soporific effects of running things on automatic pilot.
