It's Time to Start Planning for Next Year, This Year

Many organizations wait to start their planning for the next year until the fourth quarter, but now is really the ideal time to begin the process for a number of reasons.  First, updating your plan now enables you to incorporate planning decisions into budgeting decisions.  Second, updating your plan for next year requires you to revisit your plan for this year which can provide a good shot in the arm to keep pushing those 3rd and 4th quarter initiatives. 

And finally, doing it now insures it won’t get lost in the year-end, holiday rush that often derails year-end planning. 

One of the biggest challenges around planning in organizations is the ability to keep a consistent and focused view of the road ahead.

It’s not surprising given the fast pace and day to day pressures every business faces, but it’s important to maintain that bigger picture, long term view if significant growth and development is to take place.

There Are Only Three Types of Consulting Outcomes that Add Value

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I read a book that every consultant and every person who hires consultants might want to consider reading.  The book is called “The Executives Guide to Consultants: How to Find, Hire and Get Great Results from Outside Experts.”  Having been in the consulting business for more than 20 years, I was curious to read about my profession from the other side of the table. 

One of the valuable concepts in the book that sounds like common sense but may not be common practice was the list of acceptable outcomes from a consulting project.  The premise is that the only outcomes that really add value are: 1) a recommended decision, 2) a recommended plan for implementing a decision, or 3) the implementation of a plan. 

Over the past several years, I’ve made a deliberate shift in my consulting work to focus on working with clients that need a long-term partner to help them implement their plans.  I’ve found that is the best way to insure successful outcomes.  It is true though, that sometimes an executive just wants the consultant to make a recommendation and isn’t looking for implementation. 

“The Executives Guide to Consultants,” does a good job of providing a framework to determine the specific objective and how to structure the work to insure a successful outcome.

When Multitasking Might Make Sense

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Do you consider yourself an adept multitasker?  At a WPO (Women Presidents Organization) meeting, I learned something interesting on this subject from my friend Carol Richards, president at Northcoast Education Service. The topic of our WPO meeting was time management and juggling priorities. Carol explained the difference between associative tasks and cognitive tasks.

Associative tasks are things that you can do more than one of at a time. For example, most of us can drive a car and carry on a conversation with the passenger at the same time. However, if the weather suddenly turns bad and we are in the middle of a hazardous rainstorm, all of our concentration must be focused on the task of driving. Cognitive tasks require full concentration. They take all of our focus and keep us from being able to do anything else in combination with the task. 

This helped me to understand why I enjoy the feeling of accomplishment that comes from doing multiple “associative” tasks at the same time. I find it a good way to gain momentum and a feeling of accomplishment before having to focus and tackle the bigger ‘cognitive’ task that requires focus and concentration.  How about you—are you the same way?  

People Spend Time on What They Believe They Can Change

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I had the opportunity to hear Marshall Goldsmith speak at the WPO (Women President’s Organization) Annual Conference last week in Dallas.  He presented compelling results from research he did on the topic of employee engagement.  He explained that when employees’ are asked typical employee engagement questions in a passive format, their answers tend to produce more negative results and they blame their external environment, management, etc.  As an example, the questions “do you have clear goals?” and “do you have a friend at work?” are asked from a passive viewpoint. 

In contrast, when those same questions were posed as “do you do your best to set goals at work?” and “do you do your best to be happy at work?” the respondent’s replied more positively.  This is because the same essential questions asked in a different way implied the individual is responsible for the outcomes.  The perspective changes from a ‘victim mentality’ (what my company hasn’t provided to me) to one of being responsible for the outcomes (I guess I haven’t put enough attention on that subject and I can make it better).  

Selling Solutions Requires Linkage to Implications

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Have you ever noticed that sometimes no matter how diligent you’ve been working with a potential client, they have every excuse in the book to not make a decision? 

You’re asking all the right questions, and getting all the right answers to indicate a fit between their problem and your solution—but somehow the dots are just not connecting? 

Assuming that you’ve correctly identified the problem, the missing piece is the connection between solving the problem and the value of the benefits that will be received.  Implication questions can help to uncover this link.

Framed as “what would be the implication of not taking action?” or “how would making this change impact your (name the performance indicator such as: sales, profit, expense, etc.). 

Asking implication questions helps the prospect think through the impact of the investment and can provide the justification needed to commit to the solution.