This is perhaps my favorite F. Scott Fitzgerald quote: “The mark of a first-rate intellect is the ability to hold two apparently opposing ideas in mind at the same time and retain the ability to function.”
When it comes to planning for your business in this century, they are good words to keep in mind.
The two “apparently opposing ideas” in this case are as follows: First, you need to have an explicit plan for your business that goes beyond just the projection of what you expect your financials to look like. Second, you cannot treat that plan as graven in stone.
Over years of consulting with — and mentoring — small and midsized entrepreneurial companies, I’ve been struck by how rarely the otherwise highly successful people at the helm have formed a concrete plan of attack, defined it and committed it to paper, much less shared it and made sure it was understood across the organization.
But this is precisely what is needed: a road map that lays out the “what,” the “how,” the “who” and the “when” that are expected to produce the numbers projected in forward-looking financial projections.
At the same time, sticking with our old friend F. Scott, this plan of attack has to be viewed as somewhat provisional in the sense that it can be flexed and adjusted quickly when the operating environment calls for it.
This brings to mind a second quote — this time from that other great American thinker, Mike Tyson:
“Everybody’s got a plan … until he gets hit.”
We live in an era in which business and the larger world around it are subject to highly fluid, volatile and sometimes downright chaotic influences. Change is constant, as is the need to innovate. Consequently, the staid, old five-year plans of 30 years ago, crammed with backup data and loaded with dense prose, are as obsolete as the crossbow.
What you need instead:
First, a 36-month plan with a rolling four to six quarter component that permits periodic reviews and updating as the environment evolves. This includes a shared grasp of both the driving vision and/or brand position behind the plan by the rank and file of the organization.
Second, a process that permits that same rank and file to own all the elements of the plan so that effective execution is not just likely but virtually guaranteed. It’s important to remember that one of the biggest tasks facing the leader of an organization today is that of “manufacturing ownership” within the firm of the efforts to create its future. A tip: If you want to enhance the likelihood of your team’s ability to execute your plan to a tee, give them a meaningful role in creating it in the first place.
Third, a planning “loop” — a process that permits the organization to learn and adjust collectively — through the constant cycling through the steps of planning, piloting, executing, and — very importantly — tracking and analyzing results as they unfold.
At the end of the day, this is all about being highly focused and purposeful in how you go about your company’s business and about building a learning organization over time — one that is capable of adapting and adjusting on the fly and of learning from its own experiences as it seeks to continuously improve. The era in which we are all attempting to operate demands this.
As an old drill instructor once said, “There are only two types of people on a battlefield: the quick and the dead.”
Jeff Campbell is chairman of the Chairmen’s Roundtable, a nonprofit organization of senior executives providing pro bono strategic advice to midsized businesses in San Diego. He is the former CEO of Burger King and ex-chairman of the Pillsbury Restaurant Group.