The 5 Rules

Five steps to a more successful business

You will have heard the expression “fail to plan, then plan to fail”. When looking to carry out any task that involves other parties to help deliver that task successfully, it is essential you activate those other parties at the earliest opportunity. If you do not, then you will not achieve the best results with the most success. You may still achieve a result but you will have removed the opportunity for real added value. You may well have demonstrated to those parties involved that you are not organised or you do not value their input and their efforts would be best placed elsewhere. Everyone has a choice and people will give more loyalty to those who treat them with respect. Last minute requests on a regular basis, does not demonstrate respect or provide evidence of how much you value a person or an organisation(s).

So here are the 5 rules:

1. PLAN

Whatever task or objective you wish to achieve, consult all interested parties and ask their advice, but make sure you consider the ripple effect of those choices. If you do not have time to consult all interested parties then you have started too late. Already you will not achieve your desired results and should consider an alternative form of action until you have the time to consider all parties. You must plan well in advance, which will depend on your task or objective, and ensure you have milestone dates to achieve the said task to keep you on track.  The ripple effect is critical to help you make the right choice. You must consider how what you decide impacts on all aspects of your business, departments, sectors etc. Once you have considered all options, do you have mitigation plans in place? Have you consulted all interested parties and provided them with feedback? You must listen to all concerns from all parties then make your informed choice and explain your reasoning. You can then move forward together to achieve your task or objective.

2. ORGANISE

So you have a plan. Now it is time to really get organised and inform all parties of their part to play in achieving success. You do this before you commence your own actions and you give the maximum amount of time to everyone concerned. All parties must fully understand what is required and the timescale to deliver. They must agree now or challenge the plan immediately with valid arguments.  A timescale must be agreed immediately to achieve your objective by all parties. This should have been given consideration in the first step to prevent any challenges at this point. All must understand the importance to achieve their crucial part of the plan and its impact on their own business, department etc. Sufficient resources must be allocated to hit the deadline agreed as you have now committed yourself or your business to this deadline. Once you have organised all the other parties, including in house departments or person(s), you can focus on your own individual element. You must give yourself sufficient time to deliver your own deadline and do not delegate at the last minute causing others to fail.

3. PRIORITISE

Everyone involved must prioritise their own tasks to achieve the collective deadline and ultimate objective. Once you have committed to a deadline it must be achieved, you do not pay lip service to the task and allow it to slide. If problems occur then these must be addressed and reported immediately to allow appropriate actions to take place to safe guard the main objective. Nobody wants negative surprises, especially if its non-performance, but by being informed straight away actions can be put in place immediately. Do not ignore the bigger picture and think it will go away or resolve itself or it is not important, it is very important to the bigger picture.  Priority must be given if you are to deliver again and again to earn trust. Do not make promises you cannot keep in the hope that they are not important. Your future may depend on it.

4. MANAGE

You must make regular contact and check the progress of all parties in achieving their deadlines on their respective tasks. Meet with people, offer support, encouragement and assistance where necessary. You are all in this together – one team with individual components to achieve the bigger objective. Do not take silence as progress, people keep delays and issues to themselves in hope of resolving in isolation. We tend to hope we will make up that time but quite often we do not and ask for help at the 11^th hour. This is when major problems occur, when we are not able to add support because we did not know of the issue. You must create an environment so people are comfortable to say straight away “Houston we have a problem”. We need help. If done straight away you can deal with almost anything and still achieve your deadline. A culture of openness and honesty, with no blame just support and advice for the greater good.

5. HIT DEADLINES

Do what it says on the bottle and deliver on your commitments and promises. Your word must have value and be trusted to mean what you said at all times. Do this every day, every time and you will have a great business and will be valued and trusted. You will have the right culture, values and environment for people to flourish and respect you. The odd time you fail (and you will) people will pick you up and dust you down because you deliver 99% in the right manner and that means something, even today. When you fail time and time again or deadlines mean nothing, then you will fail and your reputation will precede you. Your business will fail, lose respect, not achieve the success you desire and everything becomes about money not service. Real service and relationships of trust add value to you, your business and your bottom line.

Real service, not lip service.

Fail to plan or plan to fail.