Without quantifiable goals, you have no way of evaluating your progress.
Focusing Behaviors Is All About Decision Making
You’ve heard the saying, “if you want different results, you need to have different behaviors.” But how do you make that happen? If you ask most people they will tell you they struggle with focus because at any given time there are a multitude of things they could or should be doing. Adding to the challenge is that all of these things are often important.
One of the best ways to focus behaviors is to create a business plan. That may sound counter intuitive to people who think of a business plan as guiding future decisions. In reality, a well written business plan helps guide day-to-day decisions now, by providing a roadmap for where you’re headed. Your life today (business and personal) is the sum total of all of your choices up until now. There will never be enough time to get all the possible ‘important things’ done, so it’s critical to make sure you’re choosing the right ones.
This post is #3 in a series of 4 specific to the GG one process. View the full series:
Are You Frustrated by a Lack of Clarity and Focus?
Do you have a clear picture of where you want to take your business but it’s ‘inside your head’? A common desire for all business owners is clarity and focus in planning whether starting from scratch or dusting off an existing plan.
Some questions you can ask yourself to gain clarity include:
Why does this business exist?
How do we behave (core values)?
How do I define success?
What’s most important right now?
Write down the answers to these questions and revisit them over the period of a few days. Then share and discuss the document with your leadership team. Ask them if your description matches your actions and if their perception of what you’re building is different.
Creating clarity means that you know where you’re headed and not being taken to some accidental place like a leaf carried by water in a stream. There’s a great quote by Lily Tomlin where she said: “I always wanted to be somebody, but I should have been more specific.” Every day we’re creating something, either by accident or on purpose. Having clarity about what you’re creating will guide your decisions and help you prioritize your next steps.
This post is #2 in a series of 4 specific to the GG one process. View the full series:
Three Simple Steps to One Workable Plan
What’s the magic in one? One company, moving in one direction, with one vision, working from one overall guiding plan. Sound simple? It’s simple but it’s not easy. Ask any business owner what frustrates them about the planning process and their primary complaints are that it becomes too complicated, too cumbersome and too hard to manage. The key is to take the complex and figure out how to communicate it in a simple way. The three steps I use in my CG one process are 1) Create Clarity 2) Focus Behaviors and 3) Measure Results.
Step 1: Create Clarity. Start by getting really clear about what you’re building. Can you describe it on one page? Is it clear enough that you can share it with anyone in your company and they would understand where you’re leading the company?
Step 2: Focus Behaviors. You need to determine what behaviors will get you to the vision you have. If you want different results, you’ll need different behaviors. What are those behaviors or activities that need to happen consistently in order to produce the results you’re looking for? What kind of training and development might be needed?
Step 3: Measure Results. What are the key metrics you need to meet and how will you evaluate your progress on a regular basis? Be sure to look at both leading and lagging indicators so you’re looking both forward and backward. Then bring visibility to those metrics—the leadership team needs to be evaluating results on a regular basis and asking, “What’s working, what’s not working, and what needs to change?”
This post is #1 in a series of 4 specific to the GG one process. View the full series:
Staying Focused on What’s Important
Photo by Elena Taranenko on Unsplash
So you’ve figured out the three most important areas to your business this year, but now how do you stay focused on them? Ideally those themes are incorporated in your business planning for the year, but if you don’t have a written business plan, there are some simple ways you can keep these concepts front and center.
First, you can incorporate them into your regular, on-going communication with your team. As an example, your weekly or monthly ‘state of the company’ can include an update on progress made relative to the top three priorities.
Second, your management team meetings can include time for a monthly ‘gut check’ where the group challenges your commitment to those areas. As an example, if you’ve stated that improving employee morale is a priority, but you’re not allocating additional resources in this area, how is that going to happen?
And third, you can use those top three priorities to guide individual performance management plans. If the areas of focus are important to the company, everyone should be focused on them and looking at what role they can play in advancing them.
