Enjoy this video transcript of this week’s Monday Moment episode.
Good morning and happy Monday! I’m Monica Wofford and this is your Monday Moment, glasses and all.
Today is all about how determined leaders plot a new plan. Chances are you started this year with KPIs and smart goals and maybe even a strategic plan process or meeting, but things have all been turned upside down and may have even experienced turbulence. When things change, when a crisis occurs, when the absolutely most unexpected environment becomes our present reality, the plans must change too. And you’re most determined leaders will revamp the plan before they even take the next step forward. So, as you may have time right now, in these last few days, maybe even weeks, to revise, recreate, and revamp the plan you once had in place, let’s talk about how determined leaders plot that new plan to make progress.
Prioritize
The very first step is to prioritize. Look at your current plan, your existing initiatives, your existing projects, your existing revenue streams, and your existing business model. Does it still work? And what of those items you were working on… whether as an individual leader, leader of an entire team, or even a leader or manager of a whole company or division, … does what you were working on still have relevance? For those pieces, to which you can say yes, they are still relevant, still viable, and still important, they go on a new separate list. Prioritize what is it you’ll keep, that made the new list and get rid of the rest. I don’t mean get rid of all the people who worked on those things or get rid of all the elements of those projects. I mean, for the purpose of your plan, remove the no longer relevant items from the document, file, or piece of paper from which you were previously working. While that seems obvious, those leaders who don’t clean up the plan and put prioritization in place will create frustration in the process of reopening. You want to prioritize what will now be your existing projects, with a very rigid, at least initially, guide and calculation about what will really work and what now really needs your attention. I’d recommend you limit those priorities to three up to a maximum of five. Depending, of course, on the size of your workforce and the size of your company, come up with your three to five top, most important priorities and get rid of everything else for the moment.
Prune
Secondly, go through those priorities and prune them. Maybe, also take a look at pruning resources, positions, geography, territories, quotas, bonuses, commissions and possibly payroll and pay structures. Many have already begun to take on these efforts and have already gone through that, sometimes painful, process. Determined leaders, who are preparing a plan for any kind of upcoming change or transition time-period, not only prioritize, but they take a look at what might be superfluous. What can you prune from the current budget that can be addressed at another time? What can you prune from your current list of priorities? Does what you initially said was still relevant, truly belong in the top five? If no, instead boil down to the top two. What can you prune in the way of unnecessary meetings? (A lesson we’ve all learned in the last 60 days.) What can we prune in the way of unnecessary efforts or where you’re spending your time, your talent, your energy, and even on what might now be limited resources? It’s not to say that we’ll be in this environment of squeezing blood out of a turnip forever. You may not even be there now, but for some industries and some businesses, the slow-paced rise back to fully funded capital, full to overflowing accounts and a lot of profitability from their customers might be slow going. Prune where necessary. Prune in your plan as well, so as not to dilute energy, not to dilute efforts, or provide a distraction. Once you’ve prioritized and then pruned, your third and final step in making sure you have an ideal revamped, re-examined plan is to position yourself for success.
Position
Now, position has a multitude of meanings and one includes looking at positions on the team you have the privilege of leading. Who owns what initiative? When I’m working on the strategic planning process for a nonprofit, or an association, or an organization, we come up with owners of each individual item. That is of priority focus and normally that’s the process. There may be overlap and there may be multiple owners, but one aspect of positioning is to determine who owns the item or column in the plan. For example, who owns marketing, who owns sales, who owns advertising, who owns training and development, who owns accounting? Find the positions that, in a small organization are far less clearly defined. Also look at each initiative that has made it to your priority list and not gotten cut off through the process of pruning. Establish ownership, which might be different than it was in say, January or February of 2020. The second meaning of position on which you will want to focus is on yourself, the leader. It’s time to get good at delegating, development, and coaching. We’ve been through a period of time where your energy has been drained. Your attention has been pulled in a multitude of directions, and if you’ve not been through a full amount of recovery, chances are good, it won’t take much for you to feel overwhelmed, overloaded, and like you’ve said yes to too many things. Now. Is not the time to be saying, Oh, I’ll do it myself, or to be uttering phrases like, nobody’s going to get this done right, so I’ll just do it myself. You’re only going to get away with that three or four times in this new environment before you’re done; before you’re toast, and before you contemplate the beauty of Forest Gump’s run across the country as you escape the stress. Now, that may sound a little bit drastic or maybe a bit exaggerated, but not by much. Be very mindful of positioning yourself as a determined leader working toward a new plan of action, a new plan, and a strategy for your organization to be the one focused on development, delegation, and coaching.
On a side note, if you’re not real sure how to delegate appropriately, stay tuned, as that’ll be in an upcoming Monday Moment, but in the meantime, revising or revamping and reenergizing your plan will be a valuable exercise. Between now and the time you are fully back up and running at full speed, and even dare I say, maximum capacity you have some opportunities, during this last few remaining days before much of our nation goes through, yet another changing process, to really make some decisions about how you will go forward, how you will lead in the future, and how you will be that determined leader who reaches success. I’m Monica Wofford, and that’s your Monday moment.
Thanks for watching. Thanks for also being a part of the Contagious Community. Certainly, when your company name is Contagious Companies, well…we, or at least one of our names, has been in the news a lot as of late. This virus is taken on an entirely new meaning, but let me reassure you, your leadership, your courage, your guidance, your coaching, your delegation and development of others, is all still a skill worth spreading, and as a result, is still contagious.
I’m Monica Walford join us@mondaymoment.com and we’ll see you soon.
Monica Wofford, CSP is a celebrated leader who develops future leaders. CEO of Contagious Companies, her firm delivers and designs leadership training for managers who’ve been promoted, but not prepared, and the leaders who promoted them. Author of Contagious Leadership and Make Difficult People Disappear, Monica and members of the Contagious team may be reached at www.ContagiousCompanies.com, www.MonicaWofford.com or by calling 1-866-382-0121.
