All the leaders we talked to in 2020 shared one thing in common…they learned a LOT through hardship. But none of them fell apart; their businesses survived even though there were many challenges and difficult decisions to make.
Learning from the past paves the way for creating a bigger, bolder future.
“So often in life, things that you regard as an impediment turn out to be a great, good fortune,” said one of our favorite CreationLeaders, Ruth Bader Ginsberg.
The time is coming soon for you to be planning your OKRs and laying out your P&L for 2021. It might feel like you can’t plan for the future because everything seems uncertain, and could change in an instant. That is true and there is a way to plan for the future that encompasses and accounts for the unknown.
We have found there are two keys for every company’s success:
1. Your plan
2. Your people
Optimize Your 2021 Plan
At LUMAN, we know life throws numerous curveballs. When we support teams and leaders with their remote business planning sessions, we take that into consideration.
Our Purpose Driven Operating System encourages scenario-building and testing as a way to decrease uncertainty. We have created a 6-step Strategic Planning Guide to support you not only for this coming year, but for years to come.
In this Guide, there are four main purpose-driven pillars that encapsulate everything we know about how successful businesses operate. Those four pillars are
- Purpose
- Vision
- Portfolio
- Progress.
Purpose
When it comes to business planning, you must first connect to purpose. Why does your organization or team exist? What is the reason behind each of your projects? Purpose doesn’t have to be a huge world changing thing, simply a clear “why” – because why would you do anything without a clear reason?
Vision
For planning, scenarios are key. Your vision is the scenario you are committed to creating. Track the other scenarios to ensure you are preparing for multiple possible futures and can adapt. Then expand on the narrative of your chosen vision. In order to build intrinsic motivation, an emotional connection to a possible future is required.
Vision is about dreaming up what is possible for you in 2021, thinking about what will exist in the world once you succeed – and feeling how you will feel when you know you have made a difference. If your people are emotionally connected to a vision larger than themselves, they will have reason to stretch and build new levels of competence in the process.
Having a shared vision of the outcomes you will create together will make that vision easier to implement as everyone is aiming for the same results. It also means everyone can make decisions more autonomously.
Portfolio
Once you are clear on the vision, add key milestones that need to be in place to your portfolio of activities, working backwards from the desired outcomes. Capture key assumptions while you plan. Then add them as additional portfolio items as tests to conduct. Ensure each portfolio item has a clear outcome, a time span and deadline. When it is time for your team to commit, it is clear what outcomes they are committing to.
Progress
With each of your portfolio items, be clear who on your team is in ownership, who takes responsibility, and who simply wants to be in awareness of the progress.
You can’t manage what you aren’t measuring. For each portfolio item, determine how your commitments will be measured and how you will know if you are on track. This is where you define who is creating what value and by when.
Tap Into The Brilliance Of Your People
The keys to growing businesses are repeatable and scalable processes – including your planning process. The steps for planning are the same for most businesses or projects, but the human component is always different. Each team, each organization is different and has certain cultural aspects where things aren’t working – lack of communication, silos, gossip and other toxic behaviors.
As a part of our planning sessions, we include a coaching component and give direct feedback to team members in real time.
Business outcomes are determined by mindsets and behaviors
Our mindset determines how we engage with the world around us: our chosen field of awareness, the responsibilities we choose to take on as our own, and the level of ownership we experience over our relationships and life as a whole, our ways of being. Behaviors are the results of patterned, habituated ways of being.
In order for a team to achieve the outcomes they are seeking, they have to first look at what isn’t working.
This requires authenticity, vulnerability and a good dose of courage. That is why we ensure we first create the psychological safety required to process – sometimes deeply emotional – issues from the past, before we move on to plan the future.
We encourage teams to not only learn from the past, but also explore the outcomes from past behaviors to learn what they can do differently in the future. And on top of that, we want them to have fun and enjoy the work they are doing.
How people want to feel and who they want to be motivates them
Harvard Business Review found employees spend one additional hour per week working, and take two fewer days of paid leave per year if they feel their job is meaningful. These employees also have significantly greater job satisfaction, which correlates to increased productivity.
What’s more, nine out of 10 employees are willing to “trade a percentage of their lifetime earnings for greater meaning at work. Across age and salary groups, workers want meaningful work badly enough that they’re willing to pay for it,” the same study found. Workers care about meaningful employment so much, they are willing to forego 23% of their entire future lifetime earnings, the Harvard Business Review reported.
We believe bright people create bright futures.
There are plenty of strategic planning processes and templates. Most of them will actually do the job just fine. If you have people who know how to create together and are focused on meaningful outcomes.
We love the technologies we have available, the collaboration tools, video platforms, templates, and processes for co-creation. However, we have found again and again that in the end, any tools are just as good as the humans wielding them.
So, as you endeavor to plan for your next year, keep in mind that in the end it is about serving humans. Customer focus starts with employee focus – it’s about humans!
Here’s to creating a human future in 2021!
LUMAN stands for “humans with the lights on.”
We start with how humans operate, and then create the future together. If you want to talk with us more about your business plan for 2021, we offer Strategic Planning for Remote Teams. This includes four 90-minute meetings that allow you to connect as a team and get a clear plan. We also offer services for High Performing Remote Teams. These are project based and help you accelerate outcomes while building your high-performing remote team.
Schedule time with us today to find out how you can connect your leaders to the future.
