PLANNING WITH A PURPOSE IS THE KEY TO SUCCESS

I believe strategic planning is not all it's cracked up to be. In fact, pick up a copy of the January, 2006 Harvard Business Review and you'll find that strategic planning sometimes only serves as a mechanism to ratify decisions that were made months before.

Getting bogged down by your company's strategic planning process can paralyze a workforce. As the complexity of your world has increased, you have 58 to 95 employees, so have your decisions.

I learned the difference between planning and between making decisions as I watched an outside team of investors begin to dangle the acquisition carrot in front of our faces. We had 75 employees and had just begun to build a very strong management team.

Their strategy was a part of the rollup craze that swept through the marketing, internet and advertising industry in 1999. It wasn't good enough to stand alone. The only value, so said the pundits at the time, was to have four or five offerings under one roof to out-position your competition.

So we went through a series of strategic planning meetings that brought several of us from different successful companies together to determine how this new entity would be structured.

Over lunch one day, several months into the planning cycle that appeared to me to be stranded in no man's land, I remember asking the new CEO of this venture when some decisions would actually be made to move us forward.

What I didn't realize then was that this CEO had never really run a company. His background was in large corporations, running divisions of a larger enterprise. His expertise was not in starting a company. That was our last meeting and soon after, the rollup rolled away for lack of clarity, a defined market and ultimately the CEO's inability to make decisions instead of to make plans.

I know planning is a critical aspect of any business's success. But planning for planning sake will not a company make. You have to be able to identify the key decisions that must be made and when to make them.

Think in terms of kicking the planning process forward from a proactive stance and utilize these Stage 5 rules of the road to help give you a foundation. Your goal - plan with purpose.

Stage 5 Leadership Rules of the Road - 58 to 95 employees:

Rule #1: Overhaul the business model.

- challenge all assumptions regarding vision, mission, goals, objectives and strategies of the company
- challenge all assumptions about the customer, the competition, the market and your company's offerings
- reorganize/rewire the company's resources to meet the new business design conclusions

Rule #2: Integrate the management team into an inter-dependent, executive-focused leadership unit.

- research and design a comprehensive leadership team decision making process
- facilitate the leadership teams comprehensive understanding of the company's detailed flash sheet
- unify the team by co-authoring a team mission and five clear leadership team goals

Rule #3: Establish a one year operational business plan.

- have your leadership team author the company's strategies and initiatives
- have each leader provide operational input from their area of responsibility
- organize and integrate a tactical plan with the implementation of the company's budget

Rule #4: Establish a fully integrated living budget by revenue group and by department.

- develop a comprehensive budget template by revenue group and department
- drive the budget process by the one year business plan process
- review budget assumptions and actual results at every monthly leadership team meeting

Rule #5: Allocate three percent of staff compensation for staff training.

- organize annual purpose and objectives of employee training to fit the needs of the company's business plan
- communicate staff training opportunities to the entire employee community
- establish staff training as part of the employee performance score card

Understanding your company's stage of growth can help you predict how growth will impact you. The 7 Stages of Growth enterprise development model is based on how a company moves from one stage of growth to another based on the number of employees. Why? Because the people-side of your business increases the complexity of your world. And if you understand this complexity factor, you will stay ahead of your growth curve and create a sustainable, profitable enterprise.