Mark Twain famously said, “I didn't have time to write a short letter, so I wrote a long one instead.” Doug Brown reminded everyone at Entrepreneur University this year, that your operational plan needs to be the short letter. It takes a great deal of effort to write a good one.
Doug is president of All Star Directories and I especially liked his comments because he successfully injected process maturity into a startup environment where they have grown tenfold in 4 years and can attribute their sustained rate of growth to three key planning elements: process, collaboration, and work product.
The foundation to their business planning is the strategic elements, including Purpose, Vision, Mission, Value Proposition, and Strategy. No surprises here, and I have written much about these. These are inspirational, help create alignment, and makes it clear how the team is expected to collaborate.
Doug defined collaboration as "aggressive behavior in a cooperative environment". I liked that.
Their strategic intents are articulated as initiatives (how strategy will be accomplished), each supported by a business case. These become projects and individual action items.
Everyone can spend their time wisely when you generate such clarity. You always know whether what you are working on is part of (1) the critical few, (2) the functional mandatory, or (3) the trivial many.
Bravo Doug and the whole ASD team! My personal experience is that time spent providing clarity and purpose pays dividends because everyone wants to make a difference, everyone wants to do a good job, and everyone makes decisions all day long (consciously and unconsciously). Whether you are going to the moon, rowing crew, or building a new company, those companies that succeed in planning and communicating that plan throughout the company outperform all others.
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