It is the beginning of the year and beginnings are when people tend to reflect and choose.

And maybe change direction.

Not just at the beginning of a new year, but any beginning — new month, new home, new relationship, new pet, new job, new boss, new colleague(s), new outfit, new [you name it].

I’m as prone to this as anyone, although my internal editor, who provides constant commentary — mostly irreverent, rarely complimentary — on my actions, ideas and thoughts, thinks requiring a beginning to start something is pretty silly.

When we start something has little to do with whether we finish it, let alone if it’s a success.

We all know that starting is easy, especially in comparison to sustaining the effort.

Instead of spending all your energy on the planning, save a good deal for sustaining what you started and staying flexible, so you can address challenges quickly.

Image credit Marco Verch

Poking through 11+ years of posts I find information that’s as useful now as when it was written.

Golden Oldies is a collection of the most relevant and timeless posts during that time.

KG Charles-Harris sent me an article about goals, neuroscience, and “Temporal Myopia”— the inability in the decision-making process to consider the long-term consequences of an action. Good information that scientifically confirms the idea that the best way to accomplish a long-term goal is to break it down into short-term pieces that provide daily gratification.

It reminded me of this post and the real importance of planning. Rereading it I can say without reserve that the most important point you can take away is found in the final sentence.

Read other Golden Oldies here.

Plans are made and remade over and over again, so why plan at all if it’s going to keep changing? Because the most valuable part is the act of planning, not the result of it.

Planning forces you to think in depth—an often painful process that most of us would rather avoid.

For example, it is impossible to plan an upcoming product launch without considering all the things that could go wrong simultaneously with defining the steps to take and the results you seek.

The discussion (even if it’s with yourself) engendered by stating that you are going to do A forces you to consider what will happen if A doesn’t accomplish what you want or what to do if doing A becomes an impossibility for whatever reason (time, money, manpower, etc.)

It is plan-the-verb that distinguishes the winners from the also-rans and it is the verb that keeps you ahead of the competition.

Just as importantly, it is plan-the-verb that should be pushed down throughout your organization.

This is accomplished by giving the goal to the next level down and asking them to plan how they will achieve it. They, in turn, should create multiple goals from it and pass those down to their direct reports and so on down the organizational ladder all the way to the lowest level.

At each handoff the goal is divided again and again and each person has to plan how to achieve it with the help of their group.

Always plan in pencil, because plan-the-noun needs to be a living organism that grows and changes, just as a tree bends in the wind to avoid breaking—just be sure to recycle the paper on which plan-the-noun is printed.

The benefits of this process are enormous, first, because it makes plan-the-verb a part of your corporate culture, as well as a core competency, which gives your company the ability to react far more swiftly as the waves and eddies of the economy and your industry constantly change your market.

Plan-the-verb boosts initiative, encourages taking responsibility and speeds professional growth, providing you with a stronger in-house bench from which to grow.

It is always detrimental to value the noun—plan, leader, manager—more than the verb—plan, lead, manage—but in the business world it can be devastating.

Image credit: Robert Nunnally

Planning isn’t most founders’ favorite thing.

Mainly because plans are made and remade over and over again, so why plan at all if it’s going to keep changing?

Because the most valuable part is the act of planning, not the result of it.

Planning forces you to think in depth—an often painful process that most of us would rather avoid.

For example, it is impossible to plan an upcoming product launch without considering all the things that could go wrong simultaneously with defining the steps to take and the results you seek.

The discussion (even if it’s with yourself) engendered by stating that you are going to do A forces you to consider what will happen if A doesn’t accomplish what you want or what to do if doing A becomes impossible for whatever reason (time, money, manpower, etc.)

It is plan-the-verb, as opposed to plan-the-noun, that distinguishes the winners from the also-rans and it is the verb that keeps you ahead of the competition.

Just as importantly, it’s plan-the-verb that should be pushed down throughout your organization.

This is accomplished by giving the goal to the next level down and asking them to plan how they will achieve it.

They, in turn, should create multiple goals from it and pass those down to their direct reports and so on down the organizational ladder all the way to the lowest level.

At each handoff the goal is divided again and again and each person has to plan how to achieve their part with the help of their group.

Always plan in pencil, because plan-the-noun needs to be a living organism that grows and changes, just as a tree bends in the wind to avoid breaking.

The benefits of this process are enormous.

Embedding plan-the-verb in your company’s culture means it to become a core competency.

That gives your company the ability to react far more swiftly as the waves and eddies within your industry and the economy in general constantly change your market.

Plan-the-verb boosts initiative, encourages taking responsibility and speeds professional growth, providing you with a stronger in-house bench from which to grow.

It is always detrimental to value the noun—plan, leader, manager—more than the verb—plan, lead, manage.

But these days it can be devastating.

Image credit: Robert Nunnally

A Friday series exploring Startups and the people who make them go. Read all If the Shoe Fits posts here

Background: Long-term readers know I spend a lot of time in my yard. It’s taken 10 years for me to actually like it, although people have been stopping to compliment me for at least five years.

Back then a friend gave me a split-image picture showing two yards, one lush and the other bare dirt with a few scraggly plants. The lush image is labeled “fantasy” and the other “reality.”

Imagine my surprise when I scrolled through my LinkedIn feed (a rare occurrence) and found the startup (all life, actually) version of my split-image garden.

It was posted by Andy Adams CEO, GreenEcho, LLC and it speaks for itself.

So remember, nobody ever said reality was easy — doable, but not easy.

Image credit: HikingArtist

A Friday series exploring Startups and the people who make them go. Read all If the Shoe Fits posts here

The dichotomy between what founders think/say and what they actually do never ceases to amaze me.

I’m not referring to the ‘malice aforethought’ type hypocrites who know damn well that their actions contradict their words, but

• believe no one will notice, AKA, they won’t be caught;
• provide abundant excuses when they are; or
• offer rationalizations to prove why “this time it’s different.”

I’m referring to the inadvertent ones who are totally clueless.

I see this a lot in founders who are so totally focused on short term product development that they ignore or delegate the stuff that will make or break their company down the road.

Culture and business planning, especially staffing plans, are two items that founders often kick to the side or delegate; and while I’m all for delegation some stuff just shouldn’t be.

Culture is the values of the company made visible for all to see. Can you really delegate that with a few notes on a napkin and instructions to a harried colleague?

Founders know that strong financials are necessary if they want funding, but other planning functions, such as staffing plans, often don’t seem as critical, so they are delegated or, worse, procrastinated.

The toll these inadvertent actions take can be huge and often far enough in the future that their actual origins are lost.

This “stuff” can break your social contract.

Do you make time for this stuff?

Option Sanity™ facilitates business planning

Come visit Option Sanity for an easy-to-understand, simple-to-implement stock process.  It’s so easy a CEO can do it.

Warning.

Do not attempt to use Option Sanity™ without a strong commitment to business planning, financial controls, honesty, ethics, and “doing the right thing.” Use only as directed.

Users of Option Sanity may experience sudden increases in team cohesion and worker satisfaction. In cases where team productivity, retention and company success is greater than typical, expect media interest and invitations as keynote speaker.

Flickr image credit: HikingArtist

Every time I hear a pundit ask a (positional) leader about her vision or Wall Street condemns someone for not having a vision that they consider viable I find myself wanting to bop the questioner.

I’m not into visions.

Visions are what Sherlock Holmes had when he was smoking opium; they’re what dance in kids heads before Christmas; they’re what the religious see on slices of bread and potato chips.

There’s an old saying that the difference between a dream and a goal is a plan.

I equate visions to dreams until there’s an executable plan and management with the moxie to implement it. (That’s why I don’t believe we’ll see universal healthcare any time soon—lots of visions, lots of rhetoric, little management and less moxie.)

Of course, you have to use the lingua franca of the day when communicating and that means calling your goal a vision, which is fine—as long as you really understand what’s required to make it a reality.

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Image credit: ZedBee|Zoë Power on flickr

“Don’t be fooled by the calendar. There are only as many days in the year as you make use of. One man gets only a week’s value out of a year while another man gets a full year’s value out of a week.“ –Charles Richards (And it’s your choice…)

“It’s not the plan that is important, it’s the planning”. –Graeme Edwards (Unlike crosswords, plans should always be done in pencil.)

“Life is what happens when you’re busy making other plans”. –John Lennon (Which is why you should use a pencil.)

“You see things and you say, ‘Why?’ But I dream things that never were and say, ‘Why not?'” –George Bernard Shaw (One of the basics of my own plan.)

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Image credit: katphotos on flickr