How do you go Where You want to Go?

This is a post about the importance of planning and not just engaging in fire fighting. Often most of us are good at fire fighting. Is that enough? Read on......

Pritesh is a fresh MBA and is all set to take the new role of Sales In Charge of a Brand in an FMCG company. On his first day, his Boss told him that they were looking at a 20% growth from this brand in the current fiscal year, which was 50% higher than the growth delivered by the brand in last year. Confident that Pritesh was of himself, he happily accepted the targets and also told his Boss that he will be closing the year at more than the expected levels. Pritesh started enthusiastically  and was focused on solving the problems. As soon as any problem cropped up, he immediately referred to his academic books and came up with a relevant solution. He was efficiently tackling all the problems that were coming up, but somehow, something was not right. He was still not achieving his targets. In the half yearly review with his boss, it was reflected that Pritesh’s brand was growing at the same pace as last year and the targets were being missed. When confronted, Pritesh, as he genuinely believed, told him that the targets given to him were too high to be achieved. And then his Boss asked him, “Ok, what are you plans for achieving the targets in the next six months?”. Pritesh was blank.

A lot of times this is what happens to us. We want to deliver results but we forget the first step that is required for success of any project or delivering any result – Plan. One statement that I have come to believe in, is – “If you can’t put a plan on a piece of paper, there are no chances of being able to achieve the end result”. Isn’t this true for everything that we do in our lives? Now, think of this:

Now for the next six months, Pritesh took 3 days, only to strategize what would he do to get to the sales. He listed down all the possible ways to increase the sales, referred to his academic books and chalked out a month by month plan of the milestones he would want to achieve. Along with top line increase, he also jotted down what were other problem areas like Team Motivation and Margin Management and drafted out a complete plan for next year. Now, every month, he keeps a track of whether he has achieved his target or not.  He knows if the plan worked or not, and in case it doesn’t work he has a Plan B ready to be implemented.  A little deviation from his plan cautions him to take corrective actions. And you can fully well understand what the end result was with this approach.

Anyone who has ever undertaken a complex task, has learned the importance of careful planning. This is relevant to every step in life which you need to “Win”. A “Game Plan” in any sports or “Preparations” for a party at home are all examples of how we need to “Plan” to ensure success. “Good planning conserves resources, prevents wasted effort, and saves time and money. Good planning prevents small problems from becoming big problems.” What happens when you start building a house and in the middle of it, you realize that you have run short of money to complete it? Planning, not only helps in determining the feasibility of delivery of targets, but also for knowing in advance whether any additional resource will be required in achieving what has been targeted. Planning also helps in giving teams (both internal and external) and the support functions about the next steps.  

If your objective is bigger, you will plan accordingly. The bigger you plan, the farther you will go. We saw how easy it was for Pritesh to blame it on the high targets. He was not prepared for the big targets and the fact that achieving them was never going to be easy. If you don’t plan Big in life, there are lesser chances of you making it Big in life, isn’t it? 

At the same time, it is important enough to know that some of your plans can fail too. In such circumstances, we can’t let things happen to us. Instead, it is equally important for us to have a Plan B ready, as an acknowledgement of the fact that plans can fail, but we are ready enough to face it!

The first step is to Decide where to go – near which is easy or far with challenges. If you have decided where you want to go, now is the time to decide How do you go? And then, you do need to know the alternate route too, just in case the first one has roadblocks.  Have a Happy Journey!

PS: You can also reach me out at @agrawalsanjeev on twitter.