Working together to develop a written plan, using a one page strategic plan format, is a good starting point. A one page strategic plan (OPSP) avoids lengthy, scattered documents that no one refers to again. It also keeps the plan brief, forcing clarity. And using a standard format with consistent language and definitions avoids confusion and unnecessary debate. The OPSP was popularized by Verne Harnish in his best-selling book Mastering the Rockefeller Habits, and is a key tool covered again in his more recent book Scaling Up. Other coaching organizations such as my coaching community, Gravitas Impact Premium Coaches, as well as the Entrepreneurial Operating System (EOS) and Metronomics, have all developed a version of the OPSP. In reality, the one page strategic plan is two 8.5 by 11 inch pages side by side with the company’s philosophy, strategy, 3 year plan and 1 year plan on the left page and the current quarterly company plans and individual plans on the right. I have found that some elements of the OPSP are more critical than others for small to mid-size companies here in the prairies. So I’ll share what I recommend to include in an OPSP. Also feel free to contact me to access the one page strategic plan template I use with clients, or complete the form in this article. The format I recommend to clients only includes a version of the left hand page of the one page strategic plan, which ends with the one year plan. The format for the quarterly plans on the right hand page of the standard one page strategic plan doesn’t allow for tracking progress, so it requires a separate progress tracking tool. This then requires double-entry and makes for more work and potential errors. To capture quarterly company plans and individual plans, I recommend a different quarterly planning and tracking tool, which I’ll share in a future article on execution. Once an executive team understands the process of planning and execution, I recommend an online growth system platform that automatically populates the right hand quarterly plans side of the one page strategic plan while providing ways to track progress. On the one page strategic plan that I recommend, there are four columns.
Let’s discuss each column one by one. Column 1: Core Ideology Jim Collins and Jerry Poiras, in their book Built to Last, outlined the notion of a company’s core ideology, which includes its core values and core purpose. This core ideology, or you might say company philosophy, provides a foundation for every other decision in the company. It’s the set of beliefs that, when articulated, enable a CEO and their executive team to make decisions that align with who they really are as a company, so that those decisions are authentic and sustainable. A section on Actions to Live Our Purpose & Values is also included in this column. This is a spot for the executive team to capture, and remind themselves of, what they need to be doing to keep the purpose and values alive in the company. Column 2: Strategy Fundaments Here, you’ll find a number of decisions that provide the foundation for your competitive strategy. Your Big Hairy Audacious Goal (BHAG) is a bold, exciting 10 to 30 year goal that acts as a guiding star for where you want to get to as a company. The Profit per X comes from Jim Collins’ best-selling book Good to Great and captures the key company-wide volume metric to grow and make more profitable over time: your “economic engine” as Jim calls it. Core Competencies ground you and your team in what your company is really good at right now. Your Core Purpose, from column 1, your Profit per X and your Core Competencies provide the basis for using Jim Collins’ Hedge Hog disciplined strategic thought process, also from Good to Great, to determine your Sandbox, being what you will offer, to who, through what channels, and where geographically, as well as your Core Customer, being the psychographic characteristics of your ideal customer. Ultimately, your Core Customer and Sandbox help to refine your BHAG for where you want the company to win long term. This 2nd column often takes a quarter or two to work through as a team with the support of a seasoned executive team coach. So these sections are often blank coming out of your first annual planning session. Column 3: Three Year Plan & Competitive Strategy In this column, you set your 3 Year Highly Achievable Goals (or 3HAG), that Shannon Byrne Susko coined in her book 3HAG Way. These include 3-year targets for your financial and operational metrics like revenue, unit volume(s) (that is, how many Xs from the chosen Profit per X in column 2), net profit, and, over time, cash in the bank, as your team gets more capable at forecasting. Here, companies, over time, also identify other company metrics and targets that capture the health of the business, such as in the areas of people, culture, customer satisfaction and in some cases, vendors or partners. This section is followed by the 3HAG statement, which briefly describes where the team expects the company will be in three years relative to its BHAG (in column 2) based on its 3 year financial and operational targets. Following the 3 year targets and goal are the Problems We Solve and the key differentiators the company needs to implement, refine or maintain in order to make your product or service unique and valuable in the mind of your core customers to attract and retain more of them to achieve your 3 year targets and goal. One can also then include the key competencies the company needs to develop to support implementing or strengthening those differentiators. The problems you solve, key differentiators and key competencies often take a couple of quarters or more to determine, unless of course this work has been previously completed. However, we find this to be pretty rare. We suggest setting 3 year goals in addition to 1 year goals so there is a sense of direction to provide guidance for the coming year, while being a major milestone towards the BHAG. And we suggest 3 year goals rather than 5 year goals because 3 years is more tangible and urgent, whereas 5 years is too far away to really grasp or create much urgency. Column 4: The One Year Plan The fourth column captures what you plan to achieve as a company this year. It includes, first, your Number One Addressable Challenge, a term and process developed by my colleague Mark Green in Virginia. Your Number One Addressable Challenge is the single most critical company result that must be significantly improved by the end of the year. It’s a result that often has not improved in the past and has been getting in the way of meaningful progress and other important results. Sometimes it’s profit or revenue, other times it’s capacity, other times customer satisfaction, or employee engagement, etc. If achieved, this result will set up the company to be able to make meaningful progress in future years towards its 3-year targets and goal. Then come your 1-year targets for the same metrics as in your 3-plan plan. These are the numbers you and your executive team will drive towards day-by-day, week-by-week, month-by-month, quarterly-by-quarter. One of your 1 year targets will be your Critical Number, which defines what quantifiable result needs to be achieved to say you’ve resolved your Number One Addressable Challenge. Then the root causes of that Number One Addressable Challenge are identified in order to determine your annual priorities, being the three major changes the company needs to make to resolve that single most important challenge. These annual priorities are then broken down into potential quarterly chunks to execute in each quarter. The one year plan should be developed in your first annual planning session, and it’s entirely feasible with a qualified executive team coach. Below these four columns is a short section to capture your internal strengths and weaknesses, and the company’s external opportunities and threats (your SWOT). The SWOT is completed before your three year plan, and greatly informs your one year plan. It provides context for what’s possible over three years and provides clues to identify your Number One Addressable Challenge, root causes and annual priorities. Think about column 1, your core ideology, as being the company philosophy that doesn’t change and guides every decision and behaviour in the organization. Column 2, your strategy fundamentals, reflects where you’re best to play and grow over the next 10 years based on where you can excel. Column 3, your three year plan and competitive strategy describes what you want to achieve and how the company needs to evolve to position successfully in the market, within your strategy fundamentals, on the way to your 10 year goal. And Column 4, your annual plan, defines specifically what the company needs to achieve and tackle this coming year to move towards your 3 year goals.
If you are a prairie CEO who wants to grow a thriving company, team and life more quickly, more easily and with less stress and headache, please contact me here.
Comments are closed.
|
Archives
December 2029
Categories
All
|
RSS Feed
Copyright © 2018