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“Ideas are easy. Implementation is hard.” - Guy Kawasaki
By coaching workers that range from junior employees through to the most senior executives, I get to see the broad spectrums that vary from those who struggle to perform through to those who are absolute high achievers. What I do know is age and experience have no correlation whatsoever to performance. The biggest difference comes down to how well ideas and plans are implemented.
“Plan your work and work your plan” - Napoleon Hill
I knew planning and scheduling were issues faced by many workers, but never in my wildest dreams did I realise it was to this magnitude. After recently writing Your schedule doesn’t replace the need to plan so many people have bravely contacted me to share their challenges. Do you plan and schedule for success or failure?
“A plan is what, a schedule is when. It takes both a plan and a schedule to get things done” – Peter Turla
There’s a big difference between planning and scheduling. It’s not effective to do one without the other. A plan without a schedule isn’t specific enough. Whereas, a schedule without a plan is too detailed and short-term focused. Scheduling when you intend to take action doesn’t replace the need for planning. Instead, it increases it.
“Failing to plan is planning to fail” - Alan Lakein
How’s the New Year kicked off? Are you making progress or are you falling behind already? Why is it that 10 workers can have the same intent but only 6 of them achieve what they set out to do? There’s a multitude of reasons but the answer frequently comes down to a simple decision of scheduling when to take action. It may seem too simple to be true, but the positive impact from working from a carefully thought out calendar is profound.
Do you find it frustrating dealing with people or companies who overpromise and underdeliver? We either don’t have the time or simply can’t be bothered having to tolerate those who damage their credibility or trust. Look at the share market as an example. Case in point is November 2015 when electronics retailer Dick Smith didn’t meet previously set expectations. This resulted in the market reacting savagely and slashing the share price by 50%.
It’s necessary for business owners or people employed in leadership and key roles to plan effectively. A simple way to achieve this is to complement the work you schedule each day with a weekly planning regime. To take the time to reflect and strategize and set the course for next week to ensure you’re working towards achieving your key targeted outcomes. If you’re not doing this then maybe you feel you’re too busy or don’t need to do it, but with all due respect, I think that’s just excuses for not having a weekly planning process.
Turning vision into reality requires us to think big, plan small and action each day as different levels of planning and execution are necessary to make a vision happen. Too broad and we either underestimate scope or can be paralysed by the enormity of the task or too detailed and we can lose sight of the original objective.
At this time of year many of us are about to go on holidays – possibly early next week or maybe even today will be our last day of work. After a hectic year we might feel a sense of relief or at the other end of the spectrum somewhat anxious due to everything that needs to be done before we can actually leave work and start our holiday.
At some point you’ve probably heard the saying ‘if you fail to plan, you plan to fail”. The saying has been attributed most often to Benjamin Franklin, who is also credited with the phrase "By failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail.”
In World War 2 Winston Churchill also said "He who fails to plan is planning to fail."
Bersin by Deloitte recently published an infographic titled “Meet the modern learner” (which is worth a quick look if you haven’t already seen it).
Some of the key points included:
