“Hey Guys, How About This?”

Sam was possessed. His company, Do It Perfectly Manufacturers, kept him thinking every moment of everyday and quite often woke him from his sleep. Things were going great, but he couldn’t help thinking his employees could do more. He was a generous and determined owner and the one absolute in his life was his conviction that his employees could do better. His obsession had served him well over the past three years helping to bring his little start up company into the big time. DIP now boasted several hundred employees and was rapidly becoming the leader in its market.

He was really excited today because as usual his three o’clock in the morning waking had produced a truly inspirational solution to a nagging employee performance problem.

He rushed into work and pulled his “management team” from their offices to hear his plan. His enthusiasm was infectious and as usual his “guys,” the term he used for the men and women in the senior management team, eagerly embraced the idea and couldn’t wait to execute the details. Everyone felt this just could be what sends them to the next level. After all, Sam had proved himself over and over. He had the proverbial “golden touch.”

So within two weeks, the team was putting the final touches on the plan. The morning the plan was to be introduced to the staff Sam, joined today by his wife Millie, pulled the management team from their work again and informed them of a last minute change they came up with. So we needed to make the adjustments, simple as that. Well in any normal company this would have sent the senior management team into shock, but this group was well rehearsed in last minute changes and they simply went into hyper mode and by the time the staff came back together, they appeared unruffled, confident and eager for the presentation to begin. And, as usual, the presentation was done well and the staff left the conference room excited and anxious to get the new program started. This truly was an exciting group of people to be around.

There is a lot to be said for constantly challenging the status quo. In fact it is generally accepted that if you are not preparing for “what’s next” while things “right now” are working great, you will be unable to adapt quickly enough to the “what’s next” when it comes.

But as the weeks went by, the managers and staff began to struggle with what seemed to be the steady stream of “oops, didn’t see that one coming,” or “why are so many customers so unrealistic” kind of problems. A growing tension seemed to be building within the company. Something they couldn’t put their finger on, but distracting none the less. However, they were good at picking up the pieces and getting on with it, so wasn’t it just business as usual? And anyway, despite these distractions, they couldn’t keep up with the demand for more and more product, so they were obviously doing something right, right?

Wrong! To make my point, please consider the following two arguments.

One, being so absorbed with, “trying to do their work better and faster than anyone had ever done it before,” made it impossible to find the time to really prepare for the inevitable changes in market conditions. Oh sure, they had the “well, this should take care of any surprises, short sighted, untested, Pollyanna, we’ll be OK no matter what, plan,” on the shelf. A plan, which in fairness to the team, had taken a lot of hard work to develop.

But, none the less, it was a plan based on devastating assumptions (see reference to Mental Models in last weeks blog). These assumptions allowed them to develop confidence in a plan that was simply inadequate for the wrenching market changes they would face.

And two, the introduction of “a new plan,” again and again and again, eventually dimmed the focus, lowered the competence levels, and dulled the passion toward the plans in the very people trying to carry them out. And, as they learned, focus, competence, and passion are the three critical components to success (see “Sticking To It, The Art of Adherence” by Lee J. Colan.) So instead of the intended results, Sam and those incredibly talented DIP Manufacturing employees suffered a tragic unintended consequence, a complete collapse of their revenue stream and the inevitable closing of their doors.

For more information on either The Fifth Discipline, tools and techniques to plan effectively, or ways to measure your ability to stick to your plans and discover what parts of your organization to focus the planning on, email me at stu@simplegrowth.com or click “comment” and request.