The ABCDE Of Effective Planning
By Richard Brody
Nearly every individual who ascends to a position of leadership at least gives lip service to the need for effective planning, only those who become true leaders commit to the needed process to achieve this. The ABCDE requires: analyze; budget wisely; creativity; delegate responsibilties carefully; and executing one's plan in a proactive and meaningful manner. Anyone unwilling or unable to commit to prioritizing effective planning not only hinders but often mortally wounds his potential effectiveness. Think of effectiveness as getting it done in a productive, efficient and meaningful manner!
1. Analyze what your organization needs, requires, and where it presently is and where it wants to be. There is often a fine line and a needed balance between procrastination and careful review. However, those that procrastinate never lead because their unwarranted delays generally exacerbate difficulties and make challenges and obstacles more difficult and costly to address properly. Positive analysis is using wisdom and judgment to review alternatives, and expeditiously decide the best approach.
2. While it is nice to say you will plan, unless a leader learns to budget wisely, his approach will lack an essential component that is extremely relevant to the realities of achievement. A budget can either be a leader's friend or enemy, and wise leaders use these instruments in conjunction with their plan and agenda.
3. Effective leaders realize and understand that they can never afford to bore their constituents, but must rather continuously seek ways to motivate and increase involvement and commitment of others. This seeks what is often referred to as a willingness to think outside the box, but in practice means being open minded enough to consider alternatives without prior bias or prejudice. There are almost always more than one way to achieve goals, and wise leaders understand that this often requires creativity and enhancing the appeal and message to better attract others to listen and care more.
4. How many times have you heard someone discuss how important it is for a leader to delegate responsibilities and duties to others? However, this must be done carefully, because only when one first identifies and locates the right individuals, then trains and qualifies them, and then fully explains what the goals and commitment he is seeking, does delegating achieve its desired results. The potential is only achieved when there is a simultaneous commitment to support these individuals and back their missions consistently!
5. Nothing meaningful will ever occur unless someone executes his plan. It is never enough to just talk the talk, but effectiveness and impact requires a willingness and ability to walk the walk, too!
Anyone can talk about planning, but only when we effectively plan and carry it out to fruition, do we accomplish and reap the potential benefits and goals that we seek. Those that commit to the process are nearly always the most capable leaders.
Richard has owned businesses, been a COO, CEO, and Director of Development, as well as a consultant. He has professionally run events, consulted to over a thousand leaders, and conducted personal development seminars, for over 30 years. Rich has written three books and well over a thousand articles. His company, PLAN2LEAD, LLC has an informative website http://plan2lead.net and Plan2lead can also be followed on Facebook http://Facebook.com/Plan2lead
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