In the early days of my career I had the amazing opportunity to work for a large global company launching their first manufacturing plant in the United States. As part of the ramp-up, I distinctly remember the exciting journey….AND growing pains: a new “unknown” product, inexperienced employees, struggling suppliers, debugging new equipment, constant quality challenges, etc…

Since our team was under a strong mandate from corporate to turn the tide and stabilize quality, I remember the immense pressure we felt to prove we could handle operations, and had an effective plan to deliver the required results.

Of course, whenever we had a management review or “checkin with corporate” the pressure would rise……and we’d feel compelled to come up with something more effective, more clever, a new approach, a “silver bullet” that would save the day…and buy us more time. Sound familiar?

At one point in this frantic circle of activity, I also remember the chief designer saying something I’ve never forgotten – “since we keep changing the plan, we don’t even really understand what’s actually driving the results we’re seeing today; I’d rather we stick to a mediocre plan long enough to see results…then improve on it; at least we’d have clarity on cause-and-effect and have a stable base from which to improve.”

Can you relate? Perhaps you’re under pressure to finally deliver the plan that makes “all the stars align”…or turn around performance with a perfect “get well plan.”

The answer may lie in resisting the urge to constantly re-discuss, re-start, re-hash, re-question…and actually have the discipline to stick to your plan long enough to get results, understand what’s driving them….and only then systematically improve upon it.

This approach mitigates frantic chaos and random action, putting much higher value on consistent execution than “the perfect plan.” It creates a stable base for learning & pivoting, which then allows you to strategically activate the right improvement-levers, giving you much more insight on cause and effect…and ultimately results.

So the next time you feel compelled to change an action plan prematurely, resist the urge…rigorously execute the “mediocre plan” you’ve got… and “GIVE PEACE A CHANCE.”

www.pexels.com

In A.G. Lafley & Roger Martin’s seminal book on strategy, “Playing to Win,” they define strategy as “making specific choices to win in the marketplace.” On the surface it may seem a bit simplistic, but put into practice it’s immensely powerful.

In my work with companies, I often find that strategy is not defined clearly enough to help make real choices. There are two common traps at opposite extremes. Either strategy is so aspirational and generic that it allows for almost anything. Or it’s a set of financial metrics (ex. margin, value creation, etc.) that provides clarity on financial outcomes, but is almost useless in providing guidance on how to achieve them.

In short, a key symptom of a poorly defined strategy is when it allows us to say “yes” to too much. In fact, if strategy is about “making choices,” we should expect to say “yes” to a few important priorities and “no” to everything else. Therefore I’d propose that the acid test of your strategy is its ability to help you say “no.”

Specifically: when was the last time you said “no” because of your strategy? To make it come alive, here’s what it could sound like:

• We will not sell to this prospect because of _____ (strategic reason)
• We are not quoting on this job because of _____ (strategic reason)
• We do not compete on _____ (strategic reason)
• We will not invest in _____ because of (strategic reason)

How often does your strategy help you answer any of the above?

If it’s not often, it may be a sign you need to sharpen your strategy so it goes from being “unemployed” to “doing its job” – i.e. making specific choices that help you win!

www.hire-profile.com

Not long ago I was coaching someone in a significant sales role within his company. He was new to the job and had been given sales targets that were quite ambitious. The normal questions arose – what should I be doing? How should I organize my time? Where should I focus?

Although there’s a lot we did together to address these questions, a key breakthrough came when we defined a simple set of activity-metrics to create a sales funnel. What does that mean? We started with the annual financial goal and broke it down into a weekly target. Then we went back to the top of the funnel and made “educated guesses” on conversion rates – i.e. conversion of sales meetings to written estimates, conversion of estimates to sales, and average value of each sale. This allowed us to set targets for the number of weekly sales meetings (activity!) needed to hit the weekly financial target (outcome!).

While it may seem very simple, it was immensely powerful. Why? Because it translated the “big yearly target” into “small weekly action” (i.e. meetings) that had to happen…this week, today. It gave him something to guide his daily activities and measure progress towards his objective.

What might that be for you? Number of pages written per week/day to finish writing your book? Number of stops made to deliver an overall amount of product? Number of clicks/views/likes needed on your website to achieve a certain level of sales? Number of speaking engagements per month to generate new contacts?

Here are some simple tips to point you in the right direction:

Choose an activity to measure that is largely in your control and significantly drives the overall result/outcome. It might sound obvious, but it may take some reflection to choose the right one. (example – “weather” or “stock price” may be key & can be measured, but is clearly out of your immediate, short-term control).

Don’t worry if it’s partial or not 100% accurate. In my story of the salesman, there are clearly many other factors influencing the financial target than only number of meetings. However, to start and to keep it simple it’s the #1 priority (since without sales calls there will be no sale) and it should automatically lead us to ask the right questions. For example, if the sales person is hitting the weekly meeting-target, but not hitting the financial target? Hmmm…good question!

Where should you set the activity target?…after all your aligning two different “currencies” (ex meetings to dollars, clicks to sales, pages to book). The answer is pretty straightforward – make an educated guess based on existing data…or just gut feel if that’s all you have (which was the case in my example). The key is to begin tracking & measuring as soon as possible. It’s the quickest way to validate your target and make it more accurate over time.

So what’s the right activity target that drives your overall goal? Make a list, pick one, measure yourself, and take action accordingly. It’s simple but immensely powerful!

Picture: www.ttec.com