Tag Planning

The Perils of Planning – Part Two

Steve Keating 4 Comments

No battle plan survives contact with the enemy. – German military strategist Helmuth von Moltke.

In part one of this post we laid out the first four steps of an 8-step planning process. Those 4 steps represent a fair amount of effort and thought, more than the average person puts into an entire planning process. 

Despite that effort and thought you STILL don’t have a plan! Those first four steps are only about preparing to plan, they are not the plan. 

In part two of this post we’ll finally get to the actual plan. Before we begin let’s review. Here are the first 4 steps in the process:

  • Develop a realistic picture of the “as is” or your current situation.
  • Paint yourself a picture of the “should be” or your desired situation. 
  • Determine the investment you are willing to make in order to successfully execute your plan. This investment should be thought of in terms of both financial and time.
  • Set short range, medium range and long range goals that will stretch you while remaining realistic and obtainable. 

Ok, let’s continue with the process:

Step five – Develop your timetable. A plan is serious business, it’s not a “someday I’m going to” thing. Someday is not a day of the week. Doing anything in your free time doesn’t happen because your watch doesn’t show free time. There is no free time any more. A plan must include a timetable, the timetable has timelines, dates and deadlines. It includes when you will begin implementing the plan and when the plan will be complete. It includes start and end dates for each and every goal, whether they are short range, medium range or long range. Timetables create the pressure and accountability required to make something happen. A plan without a timetable is a plan doomed to failure.

Step six – Prepare the plan. This is the step where the rubber meets the road. You list, with great, great specificity exactly the steps you will take to achieve each goal within the plan. In this step you determine the who, what, when, and how of your plan. Who will help you, who will mentor you and hold you accountable to stick to the plan when the going gets tough?  What will you do and when will you do it? When will you review your plan and make adjustments if required? Perhaps most important how will you respond to a failure within the plan?  Remember, always remember, a failure in part of the plan does not make the entire plan a failure. No plan survives real life completely intact. 

Step seven – Implement the plan! It’s amazing how many people do a pretty decent job with the planning process and then never actually put the plan into action. No plan has a chance to succeed until it’s implemented. It’s okay to start slow but it’s vital to start. 

Step eight – Follow-up. This step is critical to the success of any plan. Not just follow up at the end of a plan but follow-up during the entire plan. Review and review some more. Tweak and adjust. Keep your plan alive by changing it as required. It’s not a mistake to admit you forgot something, it’s a mistake to ditch the entire plan because of one or two mistakes. Have your mentor or coach help you review your plan, a good mentor will help you keep it real. 

So that’s it, an 8-step process that can lead to success. 

Successful people plan, they know that even when the plan doesn’t work as designed proper planning always pays dividends. If you truly want success then do what successful people do….plan!

The Perils of Planning – Part One

Steve Keating 3 Comments

No battle plan survives contact with the enemy. – German military strategist Helmuth von Moltke.

People tell me all the time that they don’t plan because plans don’t work. They say “stuff” always comes up that keeps them from executing their plan. People interrupt them, things outside of their control go wrong or someone, likely a boss or customer throws a wrench into the plan. All of those things are the enemy of your plan.

As common as I know those things are they are also the very reason everyone needs a plan.

Success comes from planning!

Someone may achieve some level of success without a plan but it’s the kind of success that is nearly impossible to sustain. It’s short-lived because they are not certain how they achieved it and even less certain about how they will maintain it. 

Here’s a fact about planning: while plans often don’t succeed planning almost always does. The thought process that goes into developing a plan is always useful whether the plan succeeds or not…. if the planning process used was a good one. 

Below is the first half of an proven 8-step planning process that can help you find success, whether the plan succeeds or not.

Step one – Determine the “As-Is” or current situation. Before you can get to where you want to go you must know where you are. Many plans fail in this very first step because people don’t always take a realistic look at where they are at. They sugar-coat their issues, they believe they are farther along the path to their goals then they really are. Sometimes they have convinced themselves they are working hard enough to succeed when they are barely working at all. You MUST be brutally honest with yourself in this step, if you fail to develop an accurate picture of where you’re currently at you’ll find it very difficult to chart a course to ultimate success.

Step two – Determine the “Should-Be” or desired situation. This is a highly personal step, in this step you determine what success means to you. Many plans fail because people chase somebody else’s dream. When the inevitable bumps in the road show up we give up because we don’t want the dream in the first place. Don’t determine “a” desired situation, determine “your” desired situation. 

Step three – Determine the investment that you’re willing to make to achieve your goals. The common mistake people make in this step is thinking of investment solely in terms of money. The money is the easy part when compared to the physical and mental part. I can’t tell you how many dollars I’ve spent on fitness club memberships; writing the check was the easy part. I seldom was willing to invest the time required to use the club. When you think of your investment you must ask yourself if you’re willing to invest the time and effort required to succeed. DON’T FORGET, if you’re going to start doing something new you’ll likely have to stop doing something you’ve been doing. What are you willing to give up to get something else?

Step four – Set goals. Set short-term goals, perhaps as short as a day or a couple of weeks but no longer than a few months. Set medium-range goals, somewhere between 3 months and a year. Set long-range goals, from a year to 5 or 10 years. Some of the goals may be “slam dunk” goals but some should be stretch goals. Push yourself, if you easily achieve your goals it’s likely your not pushing yourself to your full potential. That said, do not set unrealistic goals, they demotivate you and can cause you to give up on your entire plan. 

That’s it for this post, we’ll look at the final 4 steps of the planning process in out next post. Those steps are the difference between a plan that could work and a plan that will work! 

 

The Value of Planning

Steve Keating 8 Comments

I talk with people nearly every week who tell me that they can’t plan because “things” change. The thing is, that’s exactly why you need a plan. The greatest value of the planning process may not be the actual plan, it may just be the fact that you stopped long enough to do some planning. 

Plans may not always work but planning always does.

In order to plan we need to think and thinking is always good. We need to think about where we are, where we want to be, and how we can get from here to there. A good planning process will include decision making on how much we are willing to invest to get there. Good planners remember to think of investment in terms of BOTH financial and time investments. 

Good plans of course include timelines for goal achievement to help build a little accountability into the plan and any plan worth the time it took to put it together includes periodic follow-up built into the plan to ensure it’s still on track.

That follow-up is where most planners miss the mark. 

German military strategist Helmuth von Moltke is credited with first saying that “No battle plan survives contact with the enemy.” In business it’s fair to say that no plan survives contact with reality. In sales it’s safe to say that there has never been a marketing plan that fully survived first contact with a customer. 

Yet many “planners” assume once the plan is complete that the planning is done. The most successful people, from any walk of life, will tell you that planning is never “done.”

All good plans begin with a clear view of the “as is” or current situation and many of those plans fail because they are never adjusted, even though the “as is” will often change.

That’s the biggest reason why what got you where you are will likely NOT get you to where you want to be. Things change, circumstances change, technology changes, customers change, everything changes… and so must your plans.

It’s a great idea to stop on your journey to success once and a while to see where you’re actually at. Look around, see what’s different from the day your initial plan was developed. Determine if where you are at is still aligned with where you want to be. 

If the plan is still aligned with your goals and objectives then perhaps a few tweaks to your plan will suffice. If the alignment is way off perhaps a blank piece of paper is the best place to begin again. 

Most importantly, when reviewing your plan is this: Don’t attempt this alone! If it’s “your” plan, if you developed it, it’s very likely that you’re to close to really see it for what it is. Get help, if you’re a leader then task your people with a review of the plan. If you’re an entrepreneur and just starting out then ask your mentor or someone you trust to periodically review your plan. 

However you choose to review your plan the key is to actually review it, at least a couple of times a year. Things change, if your plan isn’t changing with them then what got you where you are most certainly will NOT get you to where you want to go next.

You’re Gonna Need a New Excuse

Steve Keating 6 Comments

Ah, next year! It’s the ageless excuse for procrastinators and low performers alike.

Wait until next year. I’m gonna do it next year. Next year will be different. Next year will be MY year. Use whatever variation of “next year” you like but if you’ve used that excuse for waiting on anything in 2014 I have some bad news for you.

You’re gonna need a new excuse… because next year has arrived.

Maybe, just maybe instead of a new excuse you ought to make a plan. A plan to REALLY accomplish something great in 2015. A plan to actually make 2015 your best year ever. A plan that gives you an opportunity to truly succeed.

If you’re interested in replacing excuses with plans then here is a simply process you can use to develop a workable plan. One little caveat; developing a plan is the easy part, executing it takes discipline and the desire to accomplish something. Before you invest time in planning I would encourage you to set your mind to putting the plan into action.

So….

To develop a solid plan you must first have a realistic understanding of where you’re at today. You need to be very honest with yourself, if you have $50,000 in credit card debt you are not a “little” in debt. So let me repeat, you need to be very honest with yourself about where you are today. If you won’t admit where you are you’ll find it nearly impossible to get to where you want to go.

Once you are certain where you are then focus on where you want to be. Honestly and realism is again the key here; wanting to be The King of England for instance is not realistic unless your name is Charles, William or George. Even that isn’t realistic unless you have like 20 last names too.

The distance between where you are today and where you want to be is your “opportunity gap.” The greater the gap, the greater your opportunities… and the more work you have to do.

Once you’ve identified your gap you can set some goals. You’ll need short range goals, medium range goals and some long range goals. Short range goals are anywhere from 1 day to a week in time, medium range goals are measured in weeks and months and long range goals are a year or longer.

Make your goals specific, most people are good at making deadlines for their goals, to improve your odds of success you also must set a starting time, as in, “I will begin working on this goal on…..” and then set your date.

The most successful people are well balanced people so set goals in several areas of your life. Work goals, financial goals, spiritual goals, and health goals are just a few that come to mind.

Here’s the most important part of your plan…. SHARE IT! Share it with someone who cares about you enough to hold you accountable for executing your plan. This person needs to be willing to review your plan with you periodically to help you stay on track. Select this person with care because they can greatly impact the odds of your plan getting you to where you want to go.

Excuses hold you back, plans push you forward. Don’t start the New Year with an old excuse, make a plan for success today.

Stop Before You Start

Steve Keating 4 Comments

Geez, what happened to 2014? It went fast didn’t it? I hope it was a productive and prosperous year for you. I hope you kept all your resolutions and achieved all your goals. I hope!

Hope is nice but it’s no substitute for an actual plan.

If you’re like the vast majority of people, your resolutions were toast before you received your first paycheck in 2014. If you set goals your odds were somewhat better. If you set goals along with developing a plan for exactly how you would achieve them your odds of reaching them were actually pretty good.

If your plan included what you would stop doing in order to start doing something more productive then your odds of achieving your goals in 2014 were excellent.

Most of us are very busy people, we just don’t have much free time on our calendars. Yet when setting goals for the coming year we just add more to the mix. To be more successful we will start doing_____________. Go ahead and fill in the blank.

Do your goals for 2015 include starting new habits, starting new activities, starting new projects? Well that just isn’t realistic unless you first plan to stop doing something too.

I can’t tell you the number of times I’ve joined fitness clubs. I budgeted the money to pay for it, but not the time to use them. It was just one more thing that I didn’t have time to do. To be a bit more precise, it wasn’t that I didn’t have the time, I just didn’t make using the clubs a priority. To use them, I would have had to stop doing something else, I CHOOSE not to do that. It wasn’t really a concious choice but it was a choice just the same.

Unless you found yourself with an abundance of time in 2014 it’s foolish to add more to your “to-do” in 2015. Before you add anything new, take something off.

So let me suggest you begin your 2015 planning by making a “Stop-doing” list. A list of those “things” that you do which get you little or nothing in return. Make a concious choice about how you invest your time in 2015. Open up some time in your day to begin doing some new things that help you reach a goal.

Your success in 2015 might not determined by what you do; it may well be determined by what you don’t do any longer.

Do You Know This?

Steve Keating 4 Comments

Do you know where you are? Not geographically speaking but in life?

If you don’t know where you are it can be pretty tough to figure out where you are going. In 1976 Diana Ross recorded the theme song for the movie Mahogany. It was one of those songs that made people think… here are a few of the lyrics:

Do you know where you’re goin’ to?
Do you like the things that life is showin’ you
Where are you goin’ to? Do you know?

Now looking back at all we’ve planned
We let so many dreams just slip through our hands
Why must we wait so long before we see
How sad the answers to those questions can be

Do you know where you’re goin’ to?
Do you like the things that life is showin’ you
Where are you goin’ to? Do you know?

So… do you know?

Hopefully you’re exactly where you want to be in life, if not, the rest of this post is for you.

I may not know where you are but I do know how you got there. It was a decision, or more likely, a series of decisions that put you where you are. The choices you made, about where to work, where to go to school, what to study and perhaps most importantly, who to associate with, have conspired to put you exactly where you are in life.

You may not like that, you may even want to disagree with it. If you’re not happy with where you are in life you may have excuses and reasons for being there but know this: getting where you want to go will require you to accept responsibility for where you are.

Here is another bit of news you may not like: the people you associate with are almost as responsible for where you are in life as you are. Most people, there are exceptions but most people, do not achieve a greater level of success than their peer group.

I’m just not going to sugarcoat this; if you’re consistently hanging out with low achievers then it’s unlikely that you’ll reach your full potential. Your “friends” could be the nicest, kindest, most fun people on earth but if they have no desire to excel then the odds are overwhelming that they will pull you down to their level of achievement.

I know that is not a nice thing to say but it is what it is.

Successful people surround themselves with other successful people. They push themselves to succeed. They learn the habits of success from their successful peer group and it makes succeeding much more likely.

As I’ve written 100 times the most successful people also have mentors. I have been fortunate to have several incredible mentors of my life… but it wasn’t by accident. I made a decision to put myself in the presence of those people. I did that intentionally, it was a choice I made.

Believing something doesn’t necessarily make it true. Mentors, good ones anyway, will help you be honest with yourself. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve convinced myself something was true (and therefore okay to do) until I was confronted by a mentor who forced me to look at the facts.

Mentors don’t have the same level of emotional attachment to the people and things in your life that you do. They can provide you with the crystal clear logic required to balance out the emotional choices that you naturally make.

A good mentor will be honest with you when you’re not honest with yourself. Mentors are especially useful when you make a wrong turn or make a bad decision and are no longer certain exactly where you are in life.

If you don’t have a mentor then find one. Regardless of your age or level of success you’re better off with a mentor. Period!

Don’t let one more dream slip through your hands. Don’t wait another minute to see the answer to this important life question.

You simply must know where you are before you can know where you’re goin to… do you know?

Tomorrow in Pompeii

Steve Keating 11 Comments

I visited the ancient city of Pompeii last week. This is the city near Naples, Italy that was swallowed up by a volcanic eruption in the year 79 AD. It was buried in ash for over a 1000 years and rediscovered in 1599 when excavation was begun on a costal highway.  

It was an amazing, surprising, incredible, and shocking place. I was amazed by the sheer size of it. To say it was sprawling would be an understatement. Some of the dwellings were huge, even by today’s standards. There was clearly a class system in place and some were obviously better off than others. I was surprised by how advanced it must have been for the time. There were many shops and storefronts, there must have been a pretty advanced system of commerce. Speaking of commerce there were somewhere around 20-25 brothels in Pompeii to service the visiting sailors who arrived in their port. 

The layout and engineering of the city was incredible. Their ability to collect and direct water was very advanced and we even saw what was described as the first retail bakery shops. I don’t know how they can be certain they were the “first” but no other civilization is coming forward to dispute the claim so I guess they have it.

Most of all I was shocked by how suddenly it all ended for them. They figure the people of Pompeii were gassed by the volcano and then buried by the ash. That’s why the bodies, buildings, and roads are so well preserved. It’s that preservation that shows so much detail about how the people lived their everyday lives. 

It looks like they had pretty darn good lives. They lived very much as we do today, it appears they had jobs, hobbies, family, and friends. They enjoyed a good meal and time to relax. They worked hard and it showed in what they were able to build. They prospered right up until the time they didn’t. 

People being people I’ll bet many of them had plans for tomorrow on the very day that the volcano erupted. People they were going to talk too and important things they wanted to accomplish. An unfinished task they were finally going to get completed. Perhaps some were finally going to deliver a long overdue “thank you” to someone who had shown them kindness. So much to accomplish tomorrow.

But tomorrow never happened. 

Here we are thousands of years later, I’ll bet many of us have plans for tomorrow. Some little things we want to do. Some big big plans to begin that we know will change our lives. Some of us perhaps have some relationship fences to mend or we owe someone a long delayed apology. Tomorrow will be the day we make it right. 

But what if tomorrow doesn’t happen? 

The people of Pompeii were literally frozen in place. They died and their plans died with them. Many of us are metaphorically frozen in place, frozen in today, always waiting until tomorrow to tackle that tough task or unpleasant, challenging conversation. 

But what if tomorrow didn’t happen?

What are you putting off until tomorrow that you could just as easily do today? Take a moment right now to ask yourself why you’re not starting today. Be honest with yourself and be especially honest about whether you have a legitimate reason or just a procrastination inducing excuse. 

Whatever you can do today, do today. We may not all lose tomorrow the way the people of Pompeii did but for each of us there is a day when tomorrow will not happen. Perhaps we’re better off living as if that day might possibly be the day we’re living now.