Feeling overwhelmed about all your goals for 2013? Here’s a solution for you: focus on the truly important things to see real results for your company. Identify your three most important priorities and focus your management team. If you really focus, you will see better results, better alignment, higher morale, and lower stress for the CEO!
As you look back on 2012, did you and your company achieve the results you hoped for? Did you have a written plan? Could your management team name their top priorities? Did you 
make real progress on those one or two things that could really take your company to the next level?
If you are not happy with your progress in 2012, you are not alone. Many companies fail to develop a written plan. Others develop a thick plan, but the glossy notebook on the shelf never gets tracked or revised. Others seem to have a usable plan, but high impact goals get lost in a sea of routine items.
FOCUS YOUR ANNUAL PLAN:
Pick just three annual priorities for your company: Research shows that three priorities is a “tipping point” for getting things done. If your company has up to three priorities, they are very likely to get done. Adding more priorities reduces the likelihood that your priorities will be achieved. If you have seven to ten priorities, it is very likely NONE will get done.
This kind of focus is difficult. But the process of brainstorming 20 ideas and boiling it down to the three “game changing” ideas can be a great team building experience for you and your management team. Usually the idea with biggest impact is the hardest to do. When you have six priorities, managers usually start with the easier items. Having fewer items means they have to do the hard stuff. Also, when you have a few big priorities, people can actually remember then. The resulting alignment greatly increases results.
It may seem simplistic to say your company should only have three priorities. But if you really think it through, there are usually just a few “game changing” ideas each year. For example, most observers would say Facebook really has one goal this year: make money on mobile. Clearly, that theme means one set of actions for HR and hiring, different actions for engineering and security, and other activities for finance and marketing. But all of that work supports the main goal. For other companies, priorities might be expanding in selected international markets, ”editing” the product line for greater profit impact, developing a more effective sales or channel strategy, reviewing all processes to reduce cost, etc.
In the first year, many of our clients are not able to focus down to just three priorities, and they may settle with five priorities. However, the goal is to get to three priorities. Also, companies with totally different lines of business may develop separate plans for each business line.
Lastly, be sure to develop a plan, even if it is short and simple. Many companies avoid planning because they feel it takes too much time and resources. A focused, two day planning process can develop a plan that is 80 – 90% as effective as a “big book”. And the teamwork and creativity unleashed in this process can greatly increase profitability and job satisfaction across the company. Do not confuse planning with budgeting. The plan sets the direction. Once the direction is set, the budget flows from the priorities established.
In the second part of this article, I will discuss the other side of the planning process: the role of CEO leadership and processes to review actual results against the plan.
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Contact Catherine at catherine.cates@newportboardgroup.com
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