Don't fail at the first hurdle

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Debriefing with a client the other day, I asked about the biggest leap his company had made this year. "That’s easy”, he said. "When we decide to act, it used to take us six months to get rolling. Now, we’re out of the blocks within a couple of weeks.”

“And YOU know the reason why ..."

I’d worked with this business for over a year so I didn’t have to ask for the back story. When my CEO client was appointed, he had focused on turning the management team into a world class decision-making machine. This would culminate in a vibrant and agile strategic process. The Board was happy, and everyone felt good. For a while.

But then … nothing happened. The strategy called for five major initiatives but the necessary expertise was all tied up in pre-existing projects, repair work that couldn’t be postponed. And the repair work dragged on.

When I first met the CEO six months later, I asked the usual “biggest challenge” question. “Delays. People are just too busy to begin the important work.”

I asked him whether my Accelerated Project Launch© could help. Since people’s time is precious, we would focus everybody on a short series of workshops conducted over 2-3 weeks. Results had been astounding—decisions that typically took months were now taking a few days. And since we were so time efficient, we could fit this into the busiest schedules. All we needed was CEO support.

“Let's try that with my most urgent initiative.” he had said. It turned out that a few hours together was enough to lay plans that incorporated all the best expertise. After that, valuable work could begin without postponing the important projects that were mid stream. This worked so well that he asked me to run an Accelerated Project Launch© for all five initiatives.

At the end of our recent debrief, I asked whether they could be moving too quickly. “Whether we get our strategy right or wrong, the immediate next step is to know how well our plans survive the reality test. Why wait to find out whether you’re aiming in the best direction?”

Fact is, the best decisions are worthless unless they are acted upon. And the best decision-making can happen faster than you think.

Challenge

Take a look at your planning and execution process over the last year. Note down these milestones:

  1. The date that your strategic plan was finalized.
  2. When the first initiative’s kick off meeting occurred.
  3. The date the last initiative kick off meeting occurred.
  4. When all initiatives were completed and your team was full steam ahead on executing the strategy.

Now write down the dates that you could have achieved for 2, 3, and 4 if the early decision making had taken days rather than weeks or months. What would this have meant for your business?

A change of timing this week—call me Friday between noon-3pm Eastern on (647) 400 2514 and we can talk about accelerating your team's decision making in busy times. First come, first served but if I don't pick up, leave a message and I’ll call you back promptly.

... and if you missed these related articles, go back and take another look:

Important vs Urgent–why I wrote my new book The Right Kind of Help When Better Beats Best The Decision Action Loop