We have been talking about an annual planning process. It began two postings ago when we talked about laying out three to five strategic initiatives aimed at moving the company forward. Then with our last posting, we began a 2-part discussion on what some call a “budget,” but what we prefer to call a “profit
Don’t produce a budget. Map out a Profit Plan. (Part 1)
In our last posting, we talked about building an annual plan around three to five strategic initiatives. We also suggested that you open up your planning process to as many of your employees as possible . . . don’t restrict it to only you and your top managers. Make your planning process as inclusive as
“The nicest thing about not planning is that failure always comes as a complete surprise and is not preceded by a period of worry and desperation.”
About this time every year . . . somewhere around the beginning of the 4th quarter . . . is a good time to begin planning for next year. Unfortunately, planning is not an activity that most small businesses engage in . . . at least, not in any meaningful way. The owner may have
Compensation is an equity issue.
In American business, an individual’s compensation package, particularly among managers and sales people, frequently includes an incentive component. An example might be a manager who is paid a base salary of $75,000, but is able to earn an additional $25,000 if he or she is able to achieve certain goals or outcomes. The proposition is,
Work on your business, not in it.
According to the IRS, there are 18.1 million businesses in this country, but only 100,000 that employ 100 or more people. So of the 18.1 million businesses in this country, 18 million of them are small businesses. In addition, more than a million businesses are started here each year, but 800,000 of them will be
“Without execution, ‘vision’ is just another word for hallucination.”
“Which is easier, strategy (planning) or execution?” Ask any chief executive that question, and he or she will always answer, “Execution!” Putting together a good strategic plan has its own challenges, but the real trick is making that plan happen. And the reason for that is simple: executing a strategic plan is important but not
“Consider how hard it is to change yourself and you’ll understand what little chance you have when trying to change others.”
While researching their best-selling book, “First, Break All the Rules,” co-authors Marcus Buckingham and Curt Coffman interviewed over 80,000 managers in more than 400 companies. They wanted to learn what separates managers who are truly great from those who are just adequate. Surprisingly, among the great managers, Buckingham and Coffman found more differences than similarities.
“I do not believe you can do today’s job with yesterday’s methods and be in business tomorrow.”
For most of us, when we think about innovation, we think about companies like Apple, Microsoft, or Google. We think about breakthrough, disruptive technologies like the GraphicalUser Interface which took access to the Worldwide Web from the hands of a few geeks who could write computer code and gave it to the masses. In other
“Much of what we call management today consists of making it difficult for people to work.”
Noted business author and keynote speaker, Dan Pink, talks about motivation . . . a lot. He talks about what motivates us and what does not. He talks about which motivators work and which do not. One of his favorite topics is “if-then” motivators. “If you do this, then you’ll get that.” Those motivators grew
Everyone is accountable
Accountability. Everybody talks about it, but few really practice it. In its purest form, accountability is a contract to carry out a specific responsibility, and if the responsibility is time-sensitive, to carry it out within a specific time frame. The problem is, for many people, accountability isn’t viewed as a contract, but more of a
