Why Do Good Plans Go Bad?

Starting the conversation:

Have you ever wondered why even the best-laid plans can go wrong?

Your company might have a solid strategy crafted by a team of brilliant minds but still struggle to make progress. That happens when there’s a gap between strategy and execution, which can be challenging to pinpoint.

Christy Maxfield, President and CEO at Purpose First Advisors, and your host, Jess Dewell, Managing Partner at Red Direction, dive into the reasons behind this disconnect. Their insights will inspire you to take the right action right now to close the strategy gap.

Tune in to this episode of “It’s Your Business” as they explore the common pitfalls that lead to failed strategies and uncover practical strategies that successful companies use to turn their plans into actual, tangible results – strategies you can implement in your business.

You will also discover how you can equip yourself and your team with the tools to break down barriers, foster accountability, and bridge the gap between strategic planning and successful execution.

Host: Jess Dewell

Guests: Christy Maxfield

What You Will Hear:

2:50 Why now? The importance of tolerating discomfort in communicating expectations and holding accountability while your strategic plan is in implementation and execution stages.

8:20 Your script about accountability.

• What are you telling yourself? What beliefs are at play?
• Notice exercise: 1min reflection at the end of each day: Where was accountability?
• What you want to achieve takes time to create.
• Three questions to clarify for yourself and use to create how you communicate the strategy.

18:40 Engrain the way we work here.

• What are your non-negotiables (and identify if they are operational or mission-driven)?
• Tie the work prioritized to the execution of your strategy.
• Everyone uses the same dataset so that diverse perspectives of experience and knowledge can work together better.
• Are we willing to be open-minded to identify what might be next? (With 4 questions to help you get there.)

46:20 How we engage might be uncomfortable sometimes.

• It is easier to focus on process than people, yet breakdowns usually happen between people.
• When it is too late to bring in the team doing the implementation and execution of the strategy.
• The growth levers you are working with to succeed.
• Normalize everyone in the organization thinking about what we need next to succeed.

3 Takeaways

1. Coordination occurs through intentional communication to and with your team and their prioritized work.
2. Jess is in the planning stage for the next 18 months and will do the accountability noticing exercise.
3. Normalize talking openly about what we can become as a company with everyone.

Resources

• Bridging the gap between a company’s strategy and operational model
• More growth requires more commitment. Who’s in charge of growth strategy at your company?
• Closing the Strategy-Execution Gap Means Focusing on What Employees Think, Not What They Do

Transcript

Jess Dewell 00:00
I’m so glad you’re here. Thanks for stopping by at the Bold Business Podcast. We are normalizing important conversations. Yes, there are tips. Yes, there are ways to solve problems. More importantly, are going to be what do you need for yourself to be able to solve those problems and make the most of the education, the training and the programs that you are already using this can sit on top of it, fuel your soul, fuel your mind, and most importantly, regardless of where you’re at on your journey, maybe you’re starting out, maybe you’re ready to scale, maybe you’re going through reinvention, the conversations we are having will help you at each of those stages. Hang around, see what’s going on, and I look forward to seeing you engaging with our videos.

Christy Maxfield 00:47
Are you undermining the ability of the plan to be executed? Is your plan going bad? You’ve told everybody else they have to work in certain ways, but you refuse to work in those ways yourself.

Jess Dewell 00:57
Ding, ding, ding, ding, ding.

ANNOUNCER 01:01
Welcome to it’s your business. Brought to you by the BOLD Business Podcast. This is your go-to source for navigating today’s ever-evolving business landscape. In this program, Jess and Christy share the realities of current business challenges and triumphs. Get ready to lead with depth, understanding and achievement.

Jess Dewell 01:24
It’s your business hosted by the Bold Business Podcast. This is your go-to source for navigating today’s ever-evolving business landscape. I’m glad to be your host, Jess Dewell, and I am here with Christy Maxfield. We will introduce ourselves in just a moment. This is where we get real about what it means to be in business today. We get real about talking about things that maybe heard five years and 10 years ago because, guess what, they have a debt, so we’re still thinking about them. And I think we’re in this place. Well, we get to do this now. Christy will weigh in, I’m sure, because a little bit of individualization, a little bit of customization, leveraging who we are and what we have, in addition to the tools available to us, make or break what we’re doing in business, and that’s what makes up bold or not. Christy.

Christy Maxfield 02:05
Problems are the same problems other people have dealt with for years. There’s just new ways of dealing with them, and you’re dealing with them. So it’s the opportunity to really approach your business from your perspective, learn from others and make it your own.

Jess Dewell 02:19
I’m Jess Dewell not only do I host the Bold Business Podcast, I founded Red Direction a long time ago, we’re talking about strategic planning, strategic growth and doing the right work at the right time. Christy, tell us about you.

Christy Maxfield 02:32
Christy Maxfield, founder and president of Purpose First Advisors. We focus on creating growth strategies through succession and Exit Planning so that owners can get the most out of their business at every stage

Jess Dewell 02:43
We’re here, and we’re talking today about why good plans go bad. It was an interesting conversation that we were having as it’s something that came up through a lot of different conversations. And I said, Oh, maybe this one, maybe we could dive right in here, and it’s amazing to see and hear all that this encompasses. We’re going to touch on one piece. Our role is to go deep with whatever we do decide to cover, knowing it’s just a tiny piece of a bigger topic and good plans going bad, it’s most important right now, in my opinion, because as we’re talking about this, in October, it’s that time where we’re starting to think about, what are we doing next? And the bigger our company, the earlier we’ve started planning, the smaller our company, we may try and actually be able to push it off until January, but you’re starting behind at that point. I know Christy and I share this plan, early, plan often, and let’s get in the game. That’s part of the why. Now the other reason is specifically because we are talking about discomfort. It is hard and uncomfortable to be present and bold in our action and stay that course. Our ability to tolerate this discomfort and hold accountability is truly what will set us apart.

Christy Maxfield 04:04
I think it’s particularly relevant because at this point in the year, you’re probably looking at your plan and thinking it has gone bad, being disappointed and wanting to share many thoughts and feelings with your team, either shying away from that because you don’t want to be in that discomfort or not knowing how to do it in a way that doesn’t come across as angry or accusatory. Really, you’re disappointed, right? You’re probably frustrated and disappointed, and those are legit feelings, but you don’t necessarily want to communicate those feelings to your team as much as you want them to reflect on where did this go off track? I’ve been thinking a lot about it’s like when good plans go bad, the plan didn’t actually go bad. The execution of it went poorly. The plan didn’t come to fruition, or the results that you desire did not You’re not closer to them. They haven’t manifested, or the reality hasn’t changed substantially enough to feel closer to them that may we’ll talk later about why that might be a flaw in how the plan was developed. But outcome is not what you desired. But the plan actually may not have gone back at all. It may not have spoiled in any way, shape or form.

Jess Dewell 05:20
One of the things that we overlook Christy, is that we think accountable is elusive, and it’s actually not elusive. It is the way we do our work. And what do we do when our work isn’t done that way? And so how can we show up? What can we do there? And none of us want to be the person who brings everybody down. But guess what? One of my favorite things is constraints, because as soon as you take a bowling alley and you get rid of the gutters and fill them up with bumpers, you can get that ball to the pins at the other side. And that’s actually what accountability is. It helps us get to our goal of war, shifting our lens about tolerating that discomfort and where we’re actually going. And what it unlocks is huge compared to what it is in the mind,.

Christy Maxfield 06:05
I had a conversation with a new client today, first time we’re really digging in on their business, I asked about their values, and one of the phrases he used was like, we don’t do that around here. Was the idea that there are certain things that when you’re part of our team. This is the way you do business. This is how you show up. This is how we do business here. And these other things are not how we do business here. And I find that comes up a lot, but that requires having a way of doing business and having it well communicated, and having the systems and the people in place who understand and work together and facilitate all of that. So when I hear you say, how do we work? The way we do the work, the constraints that we say exist because we’re not going to do certain things. They’re outside of our value set. So we can accomplish our goal, doing these things, but we can accomplish our goals doing these things, and we’re not going to compete against each other for scarce resources. We’re going to create abundance, and we’re going to collaborate together. Right? That might be one set of constraints that are there, and then there’s other constraints that are financial and time and other things that we all are subject to.

Jess Dewell 07:17
And, so that’s where we’re going to start. We’re going to start with what is our script for accountability? That’s number one. Number two, the institutionalization, the Hey, it’s okay that this is ingrained in who we are, for the way we do our work here. And the third thing is engaging from the beginning with everybody that has a role. So those are going to be three areas that we are talking about as we’re talking about, being comfortable with the uncomfortable, specifically tolerating discomfort around this concept of execution, so that they are less likely to go bad or sideways or have less pitfalls along the way. As we’re doing our execution, wherever you happen to be right now might be at the beginning and going cool. This is perfect timing. Some of you might be in the middle, and it’s, oh, okay, I guess I can jump in and maybe we can make small adjustments and see if we can get there. And some of us are like, Yep, we’re on that path and it’s working, or, yep, we’re on that path, and this wasn’t a ride we signed up for. That’s also okay. There will be something for you to take away as well. Kristy, as we’re jumping in this concept of this first section where we’re talking about we’ve got to have our own script for accountability. What does that mean to you?

Christy Maxfield 08:31
For me, it’s the story you’re telling in your head, either about why you can’t get things done or why your team can’t get things done. And then what does it mean to be accountable and to hold others accountable, there’s a couple different storylines they tend to intersect. Then perhaps they reinforce one another. But to really take a step back and say, Is your underlying beliefs that nobody’s going to do what they say they’re going to do, and are they living up to that expectation is the underlying belief that everybody should just know what they’re supposed to do and do it, and setting a tone, and probably a false expectation of what is possible in a scenario like that, or is, is your own narrative around looking at what, what’s going on or what’s not happening and having excuses for why that’s not happening, versus identifying behaviors that are no longer serving you well and need to be changed as an owner, as a business owner, as a business leader, as the chief strategist for your organization. What are you telling yourself about being accountable, holding others accountable, and moving the organization in a way that it’s clear we do what we say. We’re going to do what’s in your head about that.

Jess Dewell 09:47
I’m going to stick with where you started. So we can get some depth here. It’s always hard to notice our beliefs. It is always hard to understand what are our beliefs? What is our reality? And where might we be getting in our own way? And ask. At least sabotaging or accidentally launching and empowering. I’m gonna, I’ll put both of those in there, because we both can be possible, and they can both have unrealized outcomes. What I would say around that is there needs to and it doesn’t have to be it’s really interesting. It doesn’t have to be difficult. I’m trying to think, how could we make something right? When we say, notice. It’s like, what does that actually mean in my world? Let me just roll up my sleeves here, because that’s actually what happening in my world. When somebody comes to me and they’re telling me this problem, I’m like, let’s notice this. Or have you noticed that after our first conversation, whether we’re working together or not, is notice every day, have this concept in mind? How does accountability, or where is accountability in my business? And that could be for or yes is or is not in my business. At the end of every day, just spend 60 seconds and write down where was accountability today? If it was missing, where was it missing? If it was there, where was it there? If it was awkward, where was it awkward? If it was exciting and something new came out of it, where was that? And just write it down. Do that for five days, every day, for one week. Because if you can do that every day for one week, one minute, then you can see patterns, what showed up every day? Where was their frustration every day? I’ll bet we have more excitement and more frustration than we realize. We just let it roll off because we gotta keep going. We let it roll off because there’s too much other stuff to do, and the priority is, the priority this could be getting in the way of the level of success that we have. That’s my idea for an exam. So let’s dig it D but let’s actually do this. What do you have now? Take it out. Here’s our that. That’s my off-the-cuff example because I use it in it’s actually not off-the-cuff. The accountability piece is the fill-in-the-blank. What are you noticing? Accountability? Here’s how you do that. What are the trends that you see as the outcome? Because now we have conversation starters. All right, so where am I assuming things? Where am I blind? Where are other people feeling frustration? Where is the breakdown occurring? Because it’s probably a communication and not a system.

Christy Maxfield 12:15
Yeah, no, I’m writing notes furiously as you’re talking because what’s important is we have to remember that when we’re coaching and leading our teams, we have to be able to describe behavior that we are seeing and want to continue, or as behaviors we’re seeing and don’t want to continue. Just saying I need you to be more accountable is not going to help anyone understand what you mean and what accountability looks like in your organization. Like accountability might look like you show up at every meeting with a pad to take notes on, because I don’t want devices in the meeting. Maybe one of your cultural things is I don’t want the races in the meeting unless they’re necessary for a presentation, but I do need you to demonstrate your engagement by taking notes. Accountability might look like never leaving a meeting with having a clear summary of action items, who’s responsible for them and the due dates associated with them. Accountability might look like knowing I have to show up to every meeting prepared to report on the status of whatever it is I’m working on, or whatever the purpose of that meeting is for, right? And then, if we’re not seeing those things, if I think that’s doesn’t everybody just show up to meetings with pad and paper? Doesn’t everybody show up with the status update? Not unless you’ve ingrained it in part of your culture by explaining that’s my explicit expectation and then pointing out when it’s happening and it’s not happening, noticing first, what am I seeing or not seeing? What would I expect to see, if I was seeing the things I wanted to see, if I was experiencing accountability as this palpable, tangible experience, what are some of the things I would be seeing and experiencing? How would I know things are actually getting done and getting done the way I want them, and that the people who are responsible feel a level of accountability and responsibility for them.

Jess Dewell 14:09
We’re touching on nonnegotiables here. I know when we say nonnegotiables, they tend to be bigger, broader things, but I will tell you what, how meetings are run will make or break how everything else is 100% and I know sometimes people avoid meetings full ball wax. There’s no agenda, and it’s not clear what was supposed to be the end result of us all coming together and meeting. We just know we need to be in the same room together. I really appreciate what you’re saying here, because we may have an expectation, and then we may have the reality of what’s actually there. Real is our reality actually possible with our expectation? Maybe not so maybe overlaying them together, shaking them up a little bit, and seeing what’s one thing. I will tell you that one thing probably ought to be aligned to whatever your goal for the next 18 months is. Maybe your vision too, because hopefully your goal is already aligned to that. I think it was FDR that said just actually, I’m gonna get it because I handed out I had it in a book that I was gonna reference that I’m not actually gonna use. He was quoted. I was like, Oh, this is so good. It was FDR, but above all, try something.

Jess Dewell 15:19
Yes, oh, please, for the love of Pete, or whoever you love. Because that’s act to plan, baby. Act to plan.

Christy Maxfield 15:26
I really appreciateI really appreciate what you were saying. Was around we may not even know what beliefs we hold, and one of the beliefs we hold may hold about strategic planning, having strategy, having a plan to execute strategy, and then what happens? What actually happens in terms of the execution phase, where we’re calling the inability to execute, or execute fully, this plan gone bad, is that one of our beliefs might be that my job is to set the vision, align the strategy to the vision, align the goals and objectives, and decide what the action items are and your job is to do it. And there’s a fundamental flaw in that. What we know about how people operate is that simply being handed an edict and instead being told go do that typically does not result in that being done or being done well, or being done with the level of fidelity required because they’ve had no role in actually creating it. We’re going to touch on a lot of these themes throughout our conversation. But what is your underlying belief about what your role is as owner, what your employee’s roles are, and how they’re supposed to work together to both create the plan and execute the plan, because if you have some ideas about that’s not your role, you don’t need to know that. Don’t trouble yourself with it. Let me take care of that. But then you’re also frustrated that things aren’t being executed the way you want. There’s probably some connection to that belief and the outcome you’re experiencing.

Jess Dewell 17:01
So if your style is my job is to just remove obstacles so you can go do your work. Great. However, if you’re unclear and you don’t have a clear message of here is where we’re going, and this is the reason why, and this is how you fit in, it’s still going to have a breakdown, and people are going to think that you’re just you don’t really care about their contribution, instead of you thinking you’re removing their obstacles, so just both sides of that conversation of perspective and So Christy kind of part of this as our script to hold accountable, right? So we were talking about all the ways accountability might look the way to notice and see some trends. And then we’re talking about so now, what do we do with them? I have three questions that I just came up with as we were talking. Tell me what you think about these we have to create a way to communicate this accountability. We may feel like we’re repeating ourselves. That’s good. It means we got the right thing. If we keep changing what we say, we haven’t found what we’re trying to say yet. So first and foremost, when we’re talking about accountability and what it looks like if we’re not repeating ourselves, we don’t know what we’re saying yet. And hands down, hold up that mirror. We haven’t said this is what accountability is here. This is the beginning of how we do our work, and then we can actually see what that means later. So the three questions around that are, what do we need to do to create value? That was the question I had as an organization, right Are we doing the right thing, and is your role and those working with you clear, and everybody knows how they interact, that was your question. And then what’s missing for us to succeed? That would be my third question.

Christy Maxfield 18:38
We just got to know the gap. Most people skip ahead to what’s wrong, what’s not working, what do you need without checking in the Do you have role clarity? And does your team have role clarity? And does your team have process clarity? And does your team have purpose clarity? So the purpose ties all the way back to what do we need to do to create value? Are we all clear on what value it is we’re trying to create in the world and what that requires, and the strategies we have selected to both deliver that value for the customer, but also create that value for the company, which brings us all the way back to the beginning. Yeah, my job might be to remove obstacles from your way. Your job is to execute. But if I even involved you from the beginning in understanding how all the pieces fit together, so that you have clarity of purpose, clarity of process, clarity of role, then chances are you’re not going to be able to tell me what’s missing. Chances are you’re not going to be able to tell me where the breakdown is. Clarity is not certainty. Clarity is also not necessarily agreement. You may think I should have chosen a different strategy, but I’m going to read you into why I chose the strategy I chose. And what I’m always doing with my team is inviting them to be part of executing on that vision and that strategy. If you fundamentally disagree with the choices being made by the leadership of your company, by the owner, then you’re probably self-selecting out, because that’s not where you feel like you can make your highest and best contribution. I don’t think employees should expect to have direct input on vision and strategy. I do expect that they would be read into the process sooner rather than later, and be able to understand why that way of creating value for the company and the customer has been chosen, and what role they have to play.

Jess Dewell 20:41
You’re listening to the Bold Business Podcast. I’m your host, Jess Dewell. This is your program for strategizing long-term success while diving deep into what the right work is for your business right now,

ANNOUNCER 20:56
Focused on growth. Listen to more programs like this which support the challenges and opportunities you are working with right now. Search Bold Business Podcast for the key terms at reddirection.com or your preferred podcast listening app.

Jess Dewell 21:11
Actually, if I wanted to, I could be barefoot here. It’s my office.

Christy Maxfield 21:17
I am so delighted for you. And there’s times where people are, like, I get to do that because I’m the boss. If in your office, you want to go without shoes, God bless you. That’s great. You want to tell your employees they have to wear shoes even though you’re not fine. That’s great. Whatever works for you there. But you may also say that we don’t let more than 24 business hours go by without acknowledging receipt of an email, even if we don’t craft a response, we simply acknowledge receipt like you may say, that’s just the culture we have, and the way we are able to work together, collaborate and move things forward is we agree that we will acknowledge receipt of emails within 24 business hours, if we’re working with anybody, internally or externally, there are just different things that you’d expect when showing up, wearing shoes, is probably more about showing respect. It reflects on how we show up and how people perceive us, and what kind of preconceived notions they might have about us and our ability to deliver the value we want to do. Sometimes it’s about safety, and sometimes it’s about external regulation, and again, sometimes it’s because I said so, and if you really fundamentally disagree, and your piggy toes have to be out more that often than they’re in, then you might decide to go work somewhere else and bring your skills and talents to that team.

Jess Dewell 22:31
That’s exactly right, and that does come down to you. What are our values and how much frustration do we have around the way people are working around us? Because if we’re the vision holder, and we’re the one responsible for figuring out what this message is that we’re communicating the accountability script that we are sharing out to the world, then what do we have? We have to go, okay. Are the things that actually are important aligned to the vision and values that have been set. Most values of companies have more than one meaning. So is the meaning that your company has chosen actually clear to all correct. And there are times where exceptions to the rule are really harmful, especially when the person who gets to be the exception is the owner. So if we’re talking about accountability and strategy execution, and part of the way you do work is to record everything in a certain type of database, project management system, CRM, and the owner refuses to do that.

Christy Maxfield 23:29
There is absolutely no way that person can, with integrity, expect that the rest of the team will do that. It’s fundamentally undermining the way that this team has decided execution happens, but you’re going to use the same reporting and accountability mechanisms that we’ve all agreed to put in place because that’s the only way we can hold each other accountable. And accountability is truly a two-way street. Most people in your organization will need something from you, even if it’s approval or the removal of obstacles, to be successful in their role. And they will need to feel like you have a level of accountability to them to perform those functions, just as they have an accountability to you to perform theirs. Are you actually undermining the ability of the plan to be executed? Is your plan going bad? Because you’ve told everybody else they have to do work in certain ways, but you refuse to work in those ways yourself.

Jess Dewell 24:28
Ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, one of the biggest things is a tech stack, right? We’re at technology time, and our company will have a set of technologies that we need to use, and we may use them in tangent, or we may come back to check that box, but we have this other technology that we are using. There are pros and cons to that. The biggest pro is I’m the most efficient I can be, and I’m actually getting everything down that everybody wants of me. So I am holding myself accountable all the time, and I’m showing up within. Integrity. The flip side to that is it could be security problems. It could be data breaches. It could be, hey, apparently people don’t actually know the role that’s being done, because all this other technology is needed that’s now part of what has been put together by the company, which means there’s a breakdown in communication about what it actually takes to do this role, and here’s where we can have burnout ties into execution failure, weird conversations about process optimization instead of actually doing the work coming in and hold us back right? So as you were speaking, that’s really what came up to me? And yes, it could be anybody I’m gonna knowledge within the company because of the longevity of the person in the position that is doing it different than everybody else, until everybody can do it the same way, until everybody can run the same reports, that’s when whatever question is asked will be looked at from different people’s experience and points of view within the same depth,

Christy Maxfield 26:03
And then there is a very real tension between your legacy employee who brings tremendous value to the organization and to the customers and allows you to create value, and the willingness or unwillingness to adopt new ways of Doing business. And I’m the easy answer is say, fire them, right? But that’s not really realistic in most situations. But there is a time that will come between tolerating where they are comfortable staying and requiring them to move forward in the organization by adopting new technologies. Usually, I think about construction for your plan to be executed well, and for you to be able to measure the KPIs that tell you it’s being executed, well, they all have to use the project management system, and you have a superintendent who writes everything by hand that’s not tenable for the long haul, you will be frustrated. You will be saying, it’s not even worth planning because it doesn’t get done. And that’s not the plan’s fault, and it’s not the execution strategy that you’ve laid out. It’s that there is an outlier that is creating a barrier to you achieving the results that you want, right? So there’s a dynamic tension there that does need to be dealt with and being able to lead people through change and help them adopt new ways of doing business as that business evolves isn’t to that same like I doing it this way for 30 years, just as much as line workers are, but we have to really be very careful not to let their personal discomfort outweigh our need to execute on the plan that we have put in place. Otherwise, we spin our wheels. We spend a lot of resource. Think about the consequences of the plan going bad. At best, maybe you just don’t gain any ground, but you don’t lose any ground. At worst, you’ve lost ground where you certainly haven’t gained as much as you possibly could. And spend a lot of time putting the plan together, something’s going to change it. We’re not saying your plan isn’t going to survive its contact with the real world. There are 10 things that’ll happen within the next 10 weeks that will require you to tweak your plan and the way it actually shows up in the world. I’m reading a book called Life is in the transitions. And it basically said, the summary of the what I read so far is, every 12 to 18 months, there’ll be a disruptor in our lives, and three to five, maybe eight times in our lifetime, will we have life quakes that are serious, seriously change the trajectory of our lives. So this isn’t that disruption and change to your plan won’t happen, but if it’s happening because your tech stack or the ability of your team to use your tech stack isn’t there, that’s problematic and something you have control over.

Jess Dewell 28:53
We do have control over that the way that we do our work hides assumptions. Our values are the way that we do our work, and that’s really important, and we want it ingrained. So we’re all going the same direction in the general sense, in the general pace, with our bumpers in the bowling lane so we can get to the pins at the end, right? That said. It doesn’t mean we can’t change the terrain. It doesn’t mean we want to use the thing from 20 years ago, because there might be a different or a better way to do it we can achieve the same. So we have to look at what are the ways we’re doing it, versus the outcomes that we want, the way to stay relevant, the way to and we have we’re talking about strategy and execution and failure of plans. Because we all have a place we want to go. We all have a place where we’re trying to keep ourselves, our employees, the service we provide relevant today and tomorrow through change. And the only way to do that is to constantly go cool. What makes us good to great? What says what can we be the best at the world at? And if we can’t be the best in the. World at a why are we doing it? And there has to be a really good, compelling reason. So maybe the way doesn’t have to be the same, but the outcome can be, one of the things that comes to mind and conversations that I have with a lot of people is switching them, switching this concept of every visit has a dollars per something in their business, right? This is also, I believe, Jim Collins concept. A lot of people go dollars-for-hours, right? That’s what we’re doing when we’re employees. That’s what we’re doing when we’re doing gig work and lifestyle businesses, too. I think there’s great value in that. So the opportunity to grow then becomes in cool we could be more efficient to that. That has an upper element. And what we’re talking about when we’re talking about failure to execute is typically where what we’ve always been doing, in terms of the way that we are leveraging growth hits its top. We don’t recognize it’s at the top, and the only way through that plateau is to change the way we look at it. There are a lot of ways to do it. First, we have to be willing. And this, this is way bigger than accountability at this point, it’s, are we willing to change the way we think? Yes.

Christy Maxfield 31:06
And going back to that superintendent example, I provided, the value of providing the best outcome for our clients. Doesn’t change. They used to accomplish that using pen and paper, and now it requires a different way of doing it. So I would agree with you the value never the value itself, the way you see it show up in the world will change. So by staying on paper and pencil and now acting counter to the value of providing the best possible product for our clients, being people of our word, doing what we say, following through on time and on budget. I’m violating all of those things because I’m unable to adopt a new way of getting the result. Because now the ante is much higher. It’s faster. It’s got to be faster, bigger, cheaper.

Jess Dewell 32:04
One of the things that we learned that I wish I had learned earlier was this concept of compounding interest granted, interest rates when I was a kid are very different than interest rates of my kid today. I can’t do that math in the 90s versus 13 years today, our compounding is going to be different. But the point is, it exists. What is the purpose of compounding? The purpose of compounding is to be able to add something and let it work for us. The more we have something that can work for us, the less we have to do it on our own. Some of us might think I’ve got to just keep adding and whatever happens. Why aren’t we leveraging the Grady? How can we be using this concept of compounding in that way, because when we get stuck in some of this other stuff, coming back to open-mindedness, is that our ability to connect, our ability to communicate, might lose focus when things go sideways, nothing goes in a straight line. Since we never have a straight line, so we can leverage that, I’m not going to have a straight line. So my job is to know what are my cues that I’m off track, what are my cues that I’m no longer in the general trajectory, and somehow the bumpers in my bowling Lane have deflated, and I’m in the gutter or in the lane next door, because I had so much momentum, whatever that case may be, we’ve got to have something in our nonnegotiables that helps us go, Ooh, I need to course correct. Ooh, this is actually different than the course I set. Ooh, what question do I need to ask here? It’s different than what we were expecting. Probably be leveraged in a very positive way. But we have to find those places, and only we can decide them. That’s what we’re really talking about, these nonnegotiables, we’re institutionalizing the outcomes we want. We want to do this, because by doing this, we’re creating value, and that value translates into revenue.

Christy Maxfield 33:51
And then there are certain things we do that feel like we’re actually getting something done, making progress or contributing, but they’re really not. There’s a really interesting comment on one of your posts about the experience of watching teams brainstorm, but never do talk. Not do a lot of us who are brought in to look at an organization and make recommendations on how to optimize process. Is a natural place to go. It’s often more comfortable than talking about the people piece, because we may want to avoid conflict or discomfort, and people are harder to change than processes are. But if the process is not the problem, and it really is about who’s doing what and when we are distracted from actually solving the problem of why isn’t my plan being executed? I would just want to go back to this idea of their problem is they brainstorm a lot. If they’re brainstorming and not doing they never actually got to creating a plan. They only stayed in the ideation, ideation stage. That behavior may not be aligned with their values if they want to truly. Be innovative. Let’s say that’s one of their core values. Innovation requires taking action, doing and learning. It’s all about the iteration they might self-reflect on. Why are we not getting to the iteration stage of this? The idea that anybody’s going to come in and help execute on brainstorms is unfair to whoever was asked to do that. We have to move past a brainstorm to select the choices we think have the greatest potential. We have to put a stake in the ground, set deadlines, timelines, and decide how we’re going to do it, and the collective responsible for creating those decisions and codifying them in the plan must to be responsible for either bringing in the people who weren’t included in the planning process, or communicating through their roles. What it’s going to take to make that happen. The comment brought up a lot for me, mostly like nobody’s going to come in and fix it, but also looking at what parts of the conversation we’re having right now are applicable. Where is there an absence of clarity around how this value shows up in our organization? Where is there an absence of noticing and naming things that may not be aligned to that how much of that is processed and how much is that leadership may need to make choices about how to behave differently.

Jess Dewell 36:26
Moving forward, you are watching, it’s your business hosted by the bold business podcasting. This is Christy and I’m Jess, and we are talking about good plans going bad and why they actually happen. We want you to be successful and have achievement, and that’s what makes it bold to be in business today. What is that next step? What is that action that you can take right now to plant the seed for whatever you have coming next? Everything’s ever-evolving. We’re glad you’re here, and Christy, remind us what you do,

Christy Maxfield 36:59
Purpose First Advisors, we work with growth-oriented business owners to create more value and their business and prepare them for whatever the secession plan and Exit Planning work they need to do to make sure that the value they’ve created lasts for generations.

Jess Dewell 37:14
And I’m Jess Dewell at Red Direction, we are talking about strategic growth plans that are three and five years down the road. The purpose being, how do we show up now to get to where we want to go? And what does that look like? Because we will all be evolving and becoming who we need to become, and evolving our companies to who it needs to be able to continue to thrive over time. And we’re talking today again about execution. We started with, what is our accountability script? Where are we at today, with accountability, the reels of it? And then we were talking about our nonnegotiables and how that shows up, and differentiating between process versus outcome and the importance of that related to strategy.

Christy Maxfield 37:53
And now we’re going to move into our third part, which is everybody being engaged. That strategy is set. The time has been taken, and we know what we’re going to say. We’re able to repeat it over and over again almost verbatim, because we know that’s the right message. Then for where we’re going, here’s where all the bumps in the roads come up. We started talking about this a little bit. Let’s go deeper into this. What can we do to ensure we stay on track and have that success? I always do some research before we talk about these things, to see what other people are thinking and saying about these topics. I know when we share this out, there’ll be a list of resources. We both found different HBr articles about this because what’s old is new again, forever. And so you’ll notice that our references go back. They weren’t just research from the last 12 to 18 months, but research that has really held up over time. And most leaders recognize there’s a disconnect between the plan they have and the execution they’re seeing. Most leaders also recognize that the place where it’s breaking down is the inability of their teams to work together to achieve collective goals. And what they’ve also recognized was that it was much easier to focus on process than people, but also people are messy, right? And what they’re really discovering is that engaging the broader team at the end of the process, when it’s fully baked and now it’s a list of to-do’s with deadlines and responsible parties is too late. They’re avoiding engaging their people earlier in the process because more people, introduces more variability. The larger the organization, the harder it is to get a representative group of people together without it being unwieldy, taking forever, etc. So those of us with smaller teams might feel like we need to make plans and present them this whole clause. What the researchers are saying is you need to open up a dialog with them at the beginning, explain your thought processes, bring them into that fold, and deal with whatever might come up, that thing you’re avoiding, where somebody tells you it might not work, or it can’t be done that way, or we tried that, and this is what happened. And work through those things so that when there is a plan in place and people do have assignments and deadlines, they are bought into the process. People try to avoid the messiness, but they also try to avoid the delay that it’s perceived to create this idea that you have to slow down, to speed up, I would argue that by waiting till the end to bring people in, there’s such a high level of ambiguity, a lack of clarity and buy in, that process actually slows you down more than bringing them in the beginning. If you can get them aligned from the beginning, you can actually recoup any slowdown you may have experienced.

Jess Dewell 41:06
I may not know the why. I may not understand the thing. I just understand this is what I have now been tasked with, and I understand my part is part of this bigger picture that I may or may not get to understand how they all fit together. Okay, fine. In my role at this director level, what I could say is, great. I’m going to now have this we got to get in a room, and in this room, I want this meeting to look like this, and it might be, however long it’s going to be, it doesn’t matter here. Are going to be the things that we’re going to talk about, and the outcome being, what do we have today move us toward another outcome would be, what are the things we wish we had? Because we think it would make it easier to get to this goal, and from that information now they’re in at the beginning. They know as much as I do, I’ve got this thing figure out what is my message, so that I can be a broken record, but I can also check in and be like, am I anywhere on track? What else do I need to know about this? Because here’s where we’re at, here’s what we are ready to do, and here’s what we’re willing to work toward readily. And if we’re on track, great. If we’re not, it’s a perfect opportunity to go so sheet this with me, and then I can go back and do what I need to do to start executing this long-term thing. Okay, so now I’m going to go up one other level. If I’m in an executive role, if I am a business owner. Maybe I’m sitting on a board of a small company and the business owners and the founders say, Hey, this is what we’re going to do, right? We want to get into a new market. Maybe we want to develop a market we already have, make a new product. Maybe we want to diversify and add a complimentary product, right for basic ways to grow. My questions then, as that board member or fellow executive of a smaller organization, or very clear, where are you coming from? What’s the momentum that we have? How are we going to be doing these things? We’re asking questions, not to challenge. These are not challenge questions people. These are, let’s understand what’s behind it, because we all need to be here at the beginning, somebody’s got to come up with the idea. It is sometimes very courageous, and sometimes depending on our personality, it takes a lot to even share these things. So being able to receive it and go cool, got it, process it real fast. And then what are the questions that I can better understand, seek to understand, because now we have the common ground, and together we can find out what is the underlying reason, what is the underlying pressure, and then bring in the diverse experience across all of the people in that room, to say, this might be disruption, this might be an opportunity. Oh, there’s actually nothing here because of this and this and this. But what are we doing? We have a data set. We’re working from the same data, and I think that’s an incredibly important piece because to the point of engagement, wherever we get to start engaging, everybody needs to be the beginning.

Christy Maxfield 43:52
Where you’re at least likely to want to do it, and it has the potential to be most messy. You have to have a process in your organization for how you solicit information, integrate process, analyze it, and then formulate decisions because not everybody gets a vote.

Jess Dewell 44:13
When the vote has already been made. Doesn’t matter where it’s coming from. The point is to understand it. Because what do we need to do? We need to go get the value. We need to go get the thing [Correct] again. We need to all be on that same page. By the way, this comes back to culture. This comes back to accountability. We got to remove that. We need to remove that from different things. I really feel like, sometimes it’s decided for us, and nobody gets to say, right, we’re saying it’s being said like somebody made this decision. Sometimes it’s made for us because of technology. Sometimes it’s made for us because of disruption of another organization’s actions, whatever it’s going to be.

Christy Maxfield 44:47
So we can make meaning together at that point, then purpose of engaging people at that point is to make meaning together, to have understanding. Covid changed how we were doing business practically overnight. We didn’t get a say in it, but we had to respond to it and make meaning together in real time. Even now, as we grapple with things like work from home and remote work. We may feel like we have more choice in what we tell or ask of our employees, but we’re still in the process of making meaning. What does it mean for just spend two or three years working remotely and then decide that’s no longer a way we want to work? You will lose some people because they have decided that their value set is designed around this new way of working right, making meaning together, understanding what it is we’re trying to achieve together, exploring the why and finding the why for yourself. The owner’s why might be because this increases the value of the business, allows me to sell in a couple years and spend time with my grandkids. They may not communicate that why to you at all your WHY might be because having this job is allows me to do fulfilling with work with people I like. So that may be why I adopt the change. Maybe that’s why I adopt and take as mine to execute the responsibilities that I’ve been given as part of this plan. That’s why I’m committed to the accountability and the execution, because we found our own why, as leaders, we should expect to be able to answer that question? Why is this important? Why are we doing this and not that? Because if we can’t answer it to other people, that means we didn’t really answer it to ourselves, and that means we probably didn’t make those choices with as much intention as we could.

Jess Dewell 46:45
It’s interesting because I think sometimes these things are made, more often than not, without really understanding the why there’s the general lever or push. So if you find yourself in that situation, the more planning, the better. I’m all about stopping I’m all about taking the time. I’m all about doing the deep work. And sometimes we can’t, or sometimes we don’t think we can, or sometimes we’re already in the middle of something that maybe we don’t have a why to but you know what? That’s what I think we could start today and say, what do we have that can solve it today? And then the next question is, what do we need to continue to solve it into the future, because here’s where we’re going to move into that growth and relevance over time. We don’t have a why. We’ll find it with those two things. Here’s what we can do today. Here’s what we need to become. Here’s what we need to continue to make a difference in the future. I advocate take the time, start get your why. Every single company I’ve worked with in the last five years has never taken that time. [Do as we say, not as we do, right?] But we’re gonna call it out and say, okay, but that doesn’t mean you can’t start that doesn’t mean you’re behind. That doesn’t mean anything. It means be right here. It does. So what are we solving and how are we solving it today, and is it going to be relevant in future? What do we need to change about what we’re doing to be relevant in the future, because our why will be discovered, and that’s important, and it can evolve, by the way, maybe we get to one level we’re like, now what I have a lot of clients that get to that, oh, I’ve achieved that. Now what you’ll have a new model. At that point, you should be asking new questions, because your reality has changed. We were talking about, what are we normalizing? We’re talking about these outcomes and engaging people along the way. I think it is incredibly important that everybody have a voice of what do we need to succeed tomorrow and in the future? Because we never know where the great ideas are going to come from. We never know which ones are going to line up best with what the opportunities lie in the moment that we are able to make the decision when we or when we choose to make a decision. And so if we can normalize that, everybody stops thinking about, how do I optimize what I’m doing today, and they’re optimizing the outcome for tomorrow, that just means more of everything else we want will happen on its own.

Christy Maxfield 49:02
Book called Good Strategy, Bad Strategy, and that idea that when we realize that we haven’t chosen strategy with as much intention as we might want to, we can make a different choice moving forward, we can address what needs to be done to take the next step today and tomorrow, to get the outcomes we want. How can we be more intentional with our time? This is that time of year where you are being asked to devote chunks of time to a planning process. If your process isn’t yielding a plan that gets you optimal results. It could be a function of a good plan gone bad, which we’re defining as a failure to execute, or it could be that it was a bad strategy masquerading as a good strategy, meaning that the plan itself will only help us produce. A bad strategy and the outcomes associated with it as you’re in this time, and you think I should just go in a room and do this by myself because we’re just not getting the results we want. Looking back over who’s engaged in the process and what process are we actually using to come up with our strategies and the plans and the steps required to execute or making forward progress.

Jess Dewell 50:25
Yep, I found it as Kimberly. Kimberly Laverter. She is the one who is talking about amazing ideas but then it sits and nothing moves forward. So I wanted to do a call out. We were going to get that right and in here. So I want to know what are your takeaways from our conversation today, Christy.

Christy Maxfield 50:42
That always comes back to people and your ability to communicate with and coordinate the activities of those people. You have talented people. If you’re relatively small, you have a greater likelihood of also having really passionate people, and you probably are in more intimate relationship with them than if it’s a larger organization. So use that to your point of leverage. You leverage the relationships you have with your team to build the best possible plan and plan of action.

Jess Dewell 51:19
I have two takeaways. The first one, my fill-in-the-blank exercise for accountability that’s really stuck with me this whole time. I’m probably now going to do it because I’m working on what our next 18 months is going to look like here at Red Direction. Taking five days to do that noticing would be really insightful, especially as I’m preparing for things like the Driving Solutions Intensive and other things like that. But I’m just like, Oh yeah, that would help me too. Not only was it a cool thing that I filled in the blank with this structure that I use, but I’m doing it. That’s one of my takeaways. The other takeaway is normalizing the engagement with the right people and understanding where they see our success as an organization going forward, what they see as a way to help us do more of the solution, providing that we are for our customers. Maybe that’ll help us define our boundaries a little bit more. Maybe that’ll help us figure out what processes actually work. Maybe it’ll help us find out when it’s time to let something go. Maybe it’ll be time to go, no matter what, this will always stay. What is that and why, and really be able to test some of those assumptions. So that was my second takeaway, the ability to engage in a way that is clear and everybody understands their purpose, but also gets to be part of the future. That is an interesting thing that I do not see many companies doing, and the ones that I do see doing that, and the ones that have implemented that I’ve been working with, have greater results over time.

Christy Maxfield 52:47
The research tells us having a diverse team improves the top and bottom line for a company. The reason isn’t because they’re somehow able to magically infuse the company with different ideas. It’s that they’re been purposefully invited people with different points of view, perspective, experience and backgrounds, to come together, to share those differences and mediate them into something even more valuable than what we might have come to the table with ourselves. Now it requires a lot of effort, skill and time. But the results are proven. The results speak for themselves.

Jess Dewell 53:27
Brought alone 80% of leaders feel like their company is good at crafting strategy. Only 44% feel like they do a decent job at implementation. I mean, here’s the deal, 67% of well-formulated strategies fail. 22% of employees feel like leaders have a clear direction for the organization. So if you relate to any of those three steps, you now have something to work with. Think about, internalize, and do something about it. Take the next action. All right, until next time.

Christy Maxfield 53:58
Thank you.

Jess Dewell 53:59
Every single time I have a conversation, I take away something that I want to share with 25 people I know when you’re listening to this podcast, you’re also listening for that and will have something that you want to share in the comments. I would like for you to engage with us. What is that thing that you want to tell 25 people from this program? Here’s why it’s important. It’s important because, yeah, there are going to be how-tos. Yes, there are going to be steps. Yes, you’re going to be like, Oh, I wish I wrote that down. I wish I wasn’t doing this and I could actually take action on that right now, engage right now, because that one thing you want to share with others will be the thing that you can figure out how to incorporate in your business, in your workflow, in your style.

ANNOUNCER 54:47
Jess hosts the Bold Business Podcast to provide insights for building a resilient, profitable business by deeply understanding your growth strategy, ensuring market relevance and your company’s future. Get more information about how to drive solutions and reset your growth mindset at reddirection.com. Thank you for joining us, and special thanks to our post-production team at The Scott Treatment.