Common Barriers in Business Planning

Omission: Business Plan is considered Top Secret by Top Management. It is shrouded in so much secrecy that many key employees don’t know what the game plan is for their own company. Middle managers, who must orchestrate the real work, don’t have a clear sense of priorities and front line customer-contact personnel are often clueless. The fear of the possibility that this vital information may fall into the hands of competitors overpowers the simple reality that “the troops” need to know the plan if they are to be effective.

Commission: the executive team is unable to have a meaningful conversation around the future of the company because they fundamentally lack a common shared vocabulary to do so. One sure sign of trouble is when the leadership team starts to use key strategic words and concepts, interchangeably. This leads to a misuse of such very different words as mission, vision, goals, objectives, strategy, tactics, etc. so that pretty soon no one really understands what is being said. These conversations inevitably go around in circles, with little resolution and lots of frustration.

Missing in Action Plan: “The Plan” in these companies is little more than an aggregation of numbers including departmental budgets, a P &L, and perhaps a Balance Sheet. Virtually no thought has been given to the strategies and tactical actions required to make the numbers. Management can’t realistically see where they are going because they haven’t charted the course.

The Everything but the Kitchen Sink Plan: At the other extreme are those companies (some mid-sized and most large companies) that produce voluminous Plans, often requiring 2, 3, or even 4 inch binders. As rigorous as these documents appear to be, they create a problem that is both ironic and insidious. The vast quantity of words obscures the view and actually clouds management’s understanding of the key business drivers that shape their ultimate success or failure.

The Annual Business Plan represents the single most important opportunity for the Executive Team to step up and take control over the future of their business. In many companies, this golden opportunity to provide true leadership is derailed by four common, but preventable problems. Top management in these companies must come to grips with the simple fact that they can’t expect to win out in the competitive marketplace if they are losing “strategic ground” inside their own conference room.


Source: http://www.morebusiness.com .