When you put it that way it seems so easy!

Article on Ford Motor Company and CEO Alan Mulally yesterday in the newspaper. Mulally is doing a phenomenal job of bringing Ford back from the brink. For me the operative quote in the article was: “Mulally is relentless. He’s got a laser-sharp focus on a simple vision that he just drills into the organization.”

There it is. That’s all you have to do! Focus on a simple vision that you drill into the organization. When you put it like that it seems so easy, right? Of course, it’s anything but easy. Defining the right strategic direction, distilling that strategy (imagine how complex that must be at a place the size of Ford!) down to the essence, then communicating clearly to the team. Believe, it is anything but easy.

Mark Twain once said, “I didn’t have time to write you a short letter, so I wrote a long one instead.” Distilling a simple vision from a complex strategy rarely if ever just pops into one’s head. It takes work to boil it down. And then, you have to hammer that vision, every day, constantly, pretending that overnight everyone’s forgotten what the strategy is.

The implications for your business?  You have to take the time to define a clear three-year vision and plan; take the time to build alignment around that plan among not only your executive team, but the critical mass of you employees as well. To do that, you need a simple story around which you build that alignment – a simple vision that you can focus on with laser-like intensity, hammering away every day until not only does everyone get it, but everyone is working to achieve the same results. It’s the stuff successful execution is made of.

The "Plan On The Shelf" Merry-go-round

So I’m working with a client earlier this week on long range planning, and a visitor joined us for lunch and wanted to know what we were up to. The CEO explained and the guy said, “Right, so you’ll do the planning, put it in a binder on the shelf, and that’ll be the end of it.”  I was struck by how many times I’ve heard versions of that same story over the past 20 years; in fact, how many times I’ve had it happen to me.  You go through an arduous exercise to get the plan done, go through the arduous process of linking it to a budget, through the process of getting board buy-in and approval, and then poof!  The plan is rarely if ever to be seen again! And straight we go into tactics.

In my consulting practice, my clients tell the exact same story.  That’s why the new mantra is, “Planning is not the goal, results are the goal.”  Planning is just one of several key steps in getting results, not a process unto itself.  Planning has to be done in a way that will will breed executional success. You plan the results you want so that you can get the results you planned.

Welcome 2010!

I don’t know about you, but I was all too happy to close the door on 2009. Now it’s a new year, with the promise of a fresh start.  For businesses, it’s all about getting a good jump on the new plan, which is where this blog comes in: the intersection of strategy, execution and change management is where actually getting the business results you planned is going to happen. Or not.