Planning mind-set rules

The grim reality of business is that grand visions often end in failure, new products are unsuccessful and new ventures fail to live up to their expectations. In the UK, 20 per cent of businesses fail in the first year of trading, and by year three that number rises to 50 per cent. You can probably think of many stories where blind enthusiasm and perseverance led to business success, but these stories are the exceptions to the rules.

A successful venture is more likely to be achieved by following the right processes; enthusiasm and perseverance on their own just aren’t enough. What you need are strategies that move a business in the general direction of success. The rapidly changing economic landscape also means that businesses have the added pressure of having to innovate, plan and execute plans quicker than ever.

Companies now realise the benefits of having a plan which is ‘good enough for now’, launching a project and gathering feedback and adjusting to the feedback as the plan evolves. A new paradigm for change is evident in product and service development and how visions are transformed into successful realities.

This paradigm for change is:

1. Having a vision (get clarity)
2. Having a strategic plan (good enough for now)
3. Executing the plan (without it being perfect)
4. Measuring results and getting feedback (from customers, team, suppliers)
5. Adjusting the plan according to the feedback received (making sure that everyone is on board and clear about his responsibilities)
6. Testing that the plan is progressing in the right direction

Before coaching on planning options, you need to set in place certain attitudes and rules, whether working with an individual, team or organisation. These are the Planning Mind-Set Rules.

Clients must be

• In a calm, relaxed state before any planning or appraisal: Avoid over-enthusiasm because it can distort perceptions leading to blind enthusiasm. Avoid negativity because it can lead to ideas being dismissed before properly assessed. (See Chapter 10 for state management.)
• Open-minded to all options and have a willingness to explore and play: Many great ideas come from ‘out of the box’ or ‘blue-sky thinking’.
• Honest and vulnerable with a willingness to hear, contribute and welcome all feedback: Being precious about an idea or a way to achieve something can prevent clients seeing a quicker, easier or better way. Fear of offering a comment, idea or asking a question can mean that a valuable insight may be missed.
• Neutrally detached from the outcomes of the plan: Separating any attachment from the outcomes of a project means that the plan can be appraised from an unbiased perspective, without any neediness or desperateness for the plan to work.
• Committed to engaging and contributing to the planning process: Clients sometimes detach from the planning process for reasons they may not always be able to voice. Gain a willingness to engage, setting aside all personal reservations about the vision.

The Planning Mind-Set Rules set the conditions for successful, creative and worthwhile coaching sessions. Always set out these conditions and get clients’ willingness and verbal agreement to adhere to these rules before starting. If there is reluctance to engage, this reluctance must be immediately addressed (this situation is covered in the ‘Gaining honest commitment and buy-in’ section). Neutralising any objections or resistance in advance sets the session up for success. Write the rules up on the wall as reminders.

Exploring options

With the Planning Mind-Set Rules in place (see the preceding section), you now need to explore and appraise options.

Always start a planning session with the following two exercises. The time they take depends on the scale and detail of the project. They’re best done in one session or workshop; dedicating focused time enables momentum and the opportunity to stop, have breaks and let the client have moments to reflect on his findings.

Exercise 2: Detached Perspectives

In 1956, George Miller published ‘The Magical Number Seven, Plus or Minus Two: Some Limits on Our Capacity for Processing Information’. Miller demonstrated the limits of our mental ability to retain and process discrete bits of information beyond that of 7 (+/– 2). Demonstrate this phenomena by asking clients to listen to your voice, become aware of the chair they’re sitting in, notice the temperature of the room, listen to their own internal dialogue, become aware of the light in the room, recall what they had for breakfast that morning, scan their body to notice which part of them is the most comfortable and to then notice how many of those seven tasks they had forgotten or were unable to track all at the same time.

This task is the mental equivalent of a juggler spinning plates on a stick. We are all mentally limited to how many things we can concentrate on at any one time, including those who believe they can multitask.

The relevance of this concept when planning is important. You will witness a client one moment enthused and excited about the vision; then he shifts his thinking to the planning, perhaps criticising or doubting it as he goes into detail, at which point he forgets about his enthusiastic vision. Then when he goes back to the vision, he forgets about the detail that has to happen to make the plan real. Mentally spinning the plates, he swings from enthused to doubtful and back again. People can’t mentally process all the information needed to transform a vision into a plan at one time. This common process of shifting perceptions from the vision to the plan is mentally draining and often ends up in paralysis with visions that would be worthy of time, money and effort being put aside or procrastinated over.

The following exercise can help your client form a plan for the vision without experiencing overwhelm or procrastination.

You need:

• Large sheets of flip-chart paper or a large white board and pens
• Lots of sticky notes and index cards
• Some space (If working with a team, ideally use three different rooms. If an individual, you need three distinct spaces for them to stand in.)

Throughout this exercise we reference working with a team, but the exercise works equally well with an individual. Use Figure 9-1 to guide you through the various perspectives.

Remind the team of the Planning Mind-Set Rules and get them to openly commit to follow the rules. If they violate the rules, you then have permission to point this out to them and get them to ‘STOP IT’.

1. Get the team into the Vision Perspective.

   Select a part of a room or a separate room and in this space ask the team to only think about the vision. They should not be concerned whatsoever when in this space about how the vision is to be achieved or whether it’s realistic or doable. Get them into the physiology of a visionary, looking upwards and outwards, perhaps with arms outstretched and bold gestures and in the mind-set of blue-sky no-limits thinking.

   The importance of physiology and how it influences our thinking and behaviours is covered in Chapter 10. Playing some great uplifting instrumental music gently in the background can help get them into the right perspective as can having an inspirational view or being in an inspirational location.

   Invite them to describe the vision:

   • What can you see? What can you hear? What do you feel?
   • If the vision was better, what would it look like?
   • If you could create anything, describe what you would create.
   • Is this vision really the best? Dream no small dreams, and so on.

   From the Vision Perspective no limits exist. Use this perspective and encourage the team to push beyond boundaries and thresholds they may have about what’s possible. As they describe the vision, use the cards to write keywords down. You’re looking to get the vision out of their heads and bypass the limitation of the magic number 7, +/– 2. There will be more than seven aspects of the vision for them to describe. Keep the descriptions flowing, encourage them to keep talking and describe the vision in positive terms. Do not allow them to stop and reflect on what they’ve written because it stalls the creative process.

   During this process, observe how people participate. You may notice team members who are not ‘on board’ with the vision; they will be disengaged, withdrawn or simply playing along nicely. This knowledge is valuable. It’s best to have any reluctance or reservations about a project revealed at the start. Disengagement leads to sabotage or failure to meet deadlines.

   When the answer to the question ‘Is this vision really the best it can be?’ is a ‘yes’, then the time has come to stop the exercise and take a break.

   Debrief the group. Remember to keep the conversation away from how this vision is to be achieved. Ensure that you engage those who seemed detached in the activity. Keep an open mind about what gets revealed during this step.

2. Step into the Planning Perspective.

   Again select a different space or room, ideally with lots of white board or flip-chart space. This space is where the planning department resides. Get the team into the physiology of planners (they’re to act as if they’re planners), adopt a quizzical, curious look on their faces, perhaps hand stroking of the chins. Instruct them to imagine where they sit to do their personal accounts or update their diaries and get into the same physiology.

   In this space they’re planners, external consultants who have one mission and one mission only: to explore options and create plans to achieve the vision.

   As the ideas flow, let them write keywords on the index cards and drop them to the ground. At this planning stage they’re only interested in high-level concepts. You want to create the framework of a plan, not necessarily all the finer details of the plan. If you get a sense some planners are going too much into detail with processes or systems than others may feel comfortable with at this stage, ask them to make a note that more detail is required for that part of the plan; the finer details will be addressed later.

   Prompt the planners by continually asking good questions (while ensuring not to interrupt their flow). In the next section of this chapter, you find the Information Grid. Use this grid to ensure that planners review and assess key areas that make up a robust plan. Keep prompting and asking questions until you get a sense that the planners have exhausted all high-level ideas, then take a break.

   Return to the Planning Perspective area (get clients into the physiology) and instruct them to lay out the pile of cards with keywords and group them. They will start to see patterns emerge with logical steps and sequences. When they’re happy that the cards have been sorted into logical patterns and steps, transfer what has been produced onto the flip charts or white boards.

   A plan will start to reveal itself. Allow the planners time to reorganise the plan. Look for and mark up for further consideration:

   • Streamlining (where sequences can be improved)
   • Overlap (avoid repetition)
   • Redundancy (some steps may, upon review, seem unnecessary)
   • Milestones (points where the plan can be measured for progress and celebrated if on track)
   • Pinch points (gaps in knowledge or where failure to deliver can hold up the progress of the rest of the plan)

   There comes a point where the planners want to go into too much detail for this stage, or they feel that they’ve done a good job. At this point, stop and have a break.

3. Now instruct them to take an Independent Perspective about the job the planners have done.

   Move into the third space or room and ask the team to imagine that they’re external auditors whose role isn’t to question the vision but to examine whether the planners have done a thorough job. If they were presented with an invoice from the planners, would they pay it?

   A fascinating thing happens with this stage of the exercise: The same people who created the plan now point out flaws or gaps that, when they were in the planners perspective, they were unable to see. This change is the magic number 7 phenomena at work and highlights the value of a third-party perspective discussed in Chapter 2, even when the third-party perspective comes from the same people. When all constructive feedback has been exhausted, take a break.

4. Return to Step 2, and from the Planning Perspective take on board all the constructive feedback from the Independent Perspective and adjust the plan accordingly.

   When the planners again feel they’ve done a good job, move to Step 5.

5. Return to the Independent Perspective and ask the same questions in Step 3. Feed this information back to the planners.

   Keep going between Independent Perspective to Planning Perspective to Independent Perspective until the independent consultants are satisfied that a good job has been done for now and they’re willing to pay the planners invoice. Take a break.

6. With a high-level plan in place, return to the Vision Perspective and review the vision but now with a plan designed to make it a reality and see what happens.

   The question to ask the team is, ‘What does the vision look like now in comparison to before you had a plan?’

   Step 6 is an exciting and nervy moment for clients and coach alike. Most clients, when they return to the vision with a robust high-level plan in place, comment that the vision has changed. For some, it seems clearer and more achievable. For some, it no longer appears to be the same: they often describe it as distant, less clear or even uninspiring. The first time Steve had this experience with a client, his first thoughts were ‘Oops, what have we done wrong?’ but the client turned to him and said, ‘Now I realise that if this is the plan that will get me the vision – and it is a great plan – it’s not worth the time and effort working on this project. I would rather not do it’.

How often have businesses undertaken a project that with hindsight they wish they had never started? This experiment helps clients have the advantage of hindsight ahead of time.

Assuming that the vision is still inspiring and the plan is robust, you can look at some of the common causes why a great plan can fail.

Revealing what may stop or derail the plan

The exercise in the preceding section prompts clients by asking good questions, which reveal what has to be there for a plan to work. For this, use the Information Grid, shown in Figure 9-2. Plans fail for common reasons; just as patterns for success are apparent, so are patterns for failure. By highlighting potential problems before they arise, you can enable a plan to run smoothly.

The Information Grid has 16 categories, each with a series of questions that the client is asked. The questions highlight any potential problems as well as direct the thinking in the direction of a solution.

Use these questions to get your clients really thinking about what information and resources are needed to create a robust plan and make it a reality. Consider what’s there and what’s missing. During this exercise, remember there are no dumb questions, so if something comes to mind, ask it and encourage clients to speak up and do the same. If people feel a question may be stupid or the answer obvious, they may be reluctant to ask it. What you will find is if one person has the question, someone else may also have it. The seemingly obvious questions often reveal valuable information that would be overlooked if it were not asked.

You can methodically work through the grid one category at a time or see where the conversations takes you and address the categories ad-hoc. Whichever way you choose to work, be sure to address all the categories.

• Time: What are the timeframes for the project? Do you have the resources to allocate the time needed? When are the key project milestones? How will you deal with project slippage or missed deadlines?
• Money: What will this cost? Do you have the resources/cash flow? How will you fund this?
• Effort: Have you correctly factored in the workloads required to achieve the plan? Will this remove resources from other parts of the business? How will you deal with this?
• People: Who will do specific tasks? How do you know that they’re the best people for the tasks? Have you considered outsourcing to people better suited to do specific project tasks?
• Beliefs & values: What do you believe about this project that is empowering and supportive? What do you believe about this project that may limit or affect the project negatively? What do you believe that may stop you from honestly committing to the project fully? What would you need to believe to commit fully? Why is the project important to you? How do you ensure that actions taken all meet your values?
• Skills (what we do): Do you have the skills to undertake the project? Are there skill gaps? If so, when and how can they be bridged?
• Capabilities (how we do it): Do you have the personal and organisational capability to do the project tasks? If capability gaps are apparent, who by, when and how will they be bridged?
• Environment: Where will this all happen? Do you have the right environmental setting to complete the tasks?

• PEST (Political, Economic, Social, Technology): The PEST model is an assessment of microeconomic factors that may affect a project plan. Ask these questions for each PEST category:

  • What is the current situation?
  • What can you foresee that may change over the time of the project, and how would it affect your plan?
  • What actions can you take knowing this?

  The categories are:

  • Political: Tax policy, political stability, labour laws, trade rules and restrictions, trade tariffs and embargoes, environmental laws
  • Economic: Economic climate, interest rates, exchange rates, inflation rates, funding and grants
  • Social: Cultural idiosyncrasies, population statistics, educational and career trends
  • Technology: Technological limits (limited capacity), new ways to automate (the effect on costs, pricing and demand), outsourcing and delivery options (new suppliers or emerging platforms)
• Ecology: By implementing this plan, what might also be affected by it?
• Legal: How do you know that you understand the legal implications of this project plan? Do you have the knowledge to comply with the legislation?
• Feedback (key performance indicators): What are you going to measure to ensure you’re on track? How do you know that you’re measuring the correct performance indicators? How, when and to whom are you going to present your findings?
• Feed forwards (adaptability): What are the action steps if you find you’re off-track? Who is responsible for taking the decisions and ensuring that they’re actioned?

• SWOT: Examining the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats a business faces is known as a SWOT analysis. It has become a standard section in any business plan presented to investors and is also a useful diagnostic framework when creating a process plan. Each of the components gets its own box in the last row of the Information Grid in Figure 9-2:

  • Strengths: What is the project’s unique selling point? What advantages does the business have over its competitors? What do you do better than anyone else? What do your customers and competitors see as your strengths? How does this project strengthen the business?
  • Weaknesses: What can you improve? What should you avoid? Where do you perform poorly? What loses business? What is a drain on time, money and effort?
  • Opportunities: What are the easy opportunities (low-hanging fruit)? What are the opportunities that you haven’t even considered yet? What are the opportunities that you may have considered in the past that may now be relevant? What trends are there that may lead to new opportunities?
  • Threats: What obvious obstacles do you face? What are your plans to address them? What are competitors doing that may be a threat? What are the mission-critical threats that may seriously damage the business, and how will you deal with this? What are the external conditions that may affect the project plan (PEST)?

  When considering opportunities and threats, go back through and ask the questions in the PEST categories. Often microeconomic changes lead to problems and potential threats. If clients can foresee a threat, not only can they plan accordingly, but if they can offer a solution to a problem, there is the possibility of a new business opportunity.

The degree of depth that you go into with a client with your coaching questions depends on the scale of vision and complexity of the project plan that delivers the vision. The Information Grid provides a robust enquiry, but of course you’re not limited to the questions listed here.

The only thing that never changes is that things constantly change. What may have seemed a great plan at one moment in time may need revision or abandoning. Scheduling in a regular coaching audit and revisiting the plan with the Information Grid as a guide enables clients to assess where are they now, where are they going and how they will get there.

Gaining honest commitment and buy-in

Have you ever been in a meeting where steps were put in place for a project and at the next meeting not much had changed? Of course there could be genuine reasons why targets and objectives had not been met, but it’s these project slippages that have knock-on effects and can cause a plan to stall or miss key milestones. For many businesses and projects, this theme is all too common. Often the cause is people’s failure to disclose concerns before a project starts.

At the end of each planning meeting, check with clients that:

• All involved individuals are aware of their allocated tasks and when they’re to be delivered.
• Everyone has voiced a positive commitment and support for the plan.
• Everyone has voiced any concerns or resistance to the plan.

The questions in the Information Grid (see the preceding section) that reveal factors that may affect the commitment of an individual to honestly and fully engage in a project are ‘What do you believe that may stop you from honestly committing to the project fully?’ And ‘What would you need to believe to commit fully?’

The business has to create the safe environment where individuals feel free to speak up and express themselves, to realise there are no smart or dumb questions and give genuine reasons if they have any beliefs that may stop them from honestly committing to a project.

Pinpointing when NOW is the right time

With a robust high-level plan in place and an honest commitment from all involved, the question is, when do executives do what their name implies – execute decisions and take action? When is the right time to pull the trigger on a project?

Treat this stage as you would going on any journey. Do a last check with your client to ensure that everything is in place, and pay particular attention to the resources needed for the journey. In Chapter 10, we discuss packing for the journey.

One indication that now is the right time is when the client demonstrates a sense of frustration, a desire to get on with it. The role of the coach is then to step aside and let the business get on with it.

Assuming that the client is inspired with the vision and has a good plan in place, we suggest adding a little momentum before he starts. Ask the questions, ‘Are you really up for this? Are you sure this is right and you wouldn’t be better off just letting this go?’ A little chiding and provocation and pushing the client back (verbally only) will get pushback, and that’s the time to step aside.

It’s reasonable for the client to have some apprehension before starting this grand venture, so you need to check whether the apprehension is excitement or a genuine signal that something’s missing or has been overlooked. If he’s made a thorough check and if all is in place, then now is the right time.

Packing the luggage for the journey

The word ‘timelines’ refers to our mental ability to code time so we can distinguish between past, present and future events. Patterns are apparent to how people code and represent time in their thinking. This exercise is a great coaching tool to enable clients to explore this phenomena and use it to plan and resource a plan.

Use this Walking through the Plan exercise to literally walk your client through a plan to the ultimate vision. You can break down the plan into smaller chunks and walk him through it in smaller sections. Although this exercise can be done sitting down and in the imagination, it is best done standing up and with plenty of space.

Use the specific language written in the following instructions. Some sentences may seem grammatically incorrect at first glance, but they’ve been written to create temporal and spatial shifts in the listener’s perspective. They come from hypnotic language patterns and, although this experiment does not mean you’re hypnotising your clients, the specific words cause them to experience an altered shift in their perceptions of time. Most will feel they’ve been travelling through time, and for many, their experiences of the time markers when they walk through the steps of the exercise will seem surprisingly real

1. Instruct your client to stand and face the open space and to imagine that the spot he’s standing on represents the present moment, the now; point behind him and instruct him to imagine that the past is a line on the ground running off into the past and then point in front and ask him to imagine that the future extends off ahead of him.

   Some people imagine a line, some a road. Allow the client to represent these timelines as he deems fit.

2. Stand 1 metre in front and just off to the side of his future timeline and ask him to imagine a pleasant event in the future, say one week.

   It need not be related to the plan. It may be, for example, going out with friends. Always preface this instruction with ‘a pleasant event’. You don’t want clients to imagine anything challenging or unpleasant at the start of a planning exercise – doing so may put them in an unresourceful state and affect the exercise.

3. Gesture with your hand and ask him, ‘Where do you get a sense that a week in the future is?’

   He will get you to move farther away or move closer. You’ll be surprised when you first do this how exact some people are when instructing you to make adjustments because you’re too close or too far away. Make a mental note of the distance along the imaginary timeline (or if there is a carpet on the floor, mark it with your shoe as a reference).

4. Repeat this exercise for other time markers that are relevant to the project duration.

   For example, one month, three months, one year, and so on. Choose no more than five time markers.

5. Instruct him to close his eyes and to relax. Let him know that in a moment you will be touching him on the shoulder or arm and gently walking him with his eyes closed into the future to the first time marker.

   When you do an exercise that involves asking someone to close his eyes and then touching him, get his permission to do so first.

6. Gently place a hand on his shoulder or arm and walk him to the first marker.

   Tell him to imagine he is now one week in the future (or whatever the first time marker is), the project is underway, and ask him to describe what’s happening.

7. Instruct him to notice where he is, what’s happening and describe out loud how the project is progressing, to ‘say what you see, describe what you hear and to feel what it feels like’.

   Instructing him to see, hear and feel engages three of the five senses (visual, auditory and kinaesthetic). This sensory prompt will trigger a rich and often vivid imaginary experience for the client. Allow him to speak and jot down notes of keywords to review after the exercise.

8. Prompt him with other questions and instructions such as:

   • Notice what’s working to plan.
   • What’s not working and why?
   • What resources are you using?
   • What could you do with having more of?

   When they have described this first time marker in detail, clients often just go quiet, so prompt with one last question. ‘Is there anything else of value you can notice now?’ Use the word ‘now’ because you want them to represent and imagine the ‘future-present’.

   Mentally put yourself in the same time marker as the client and use the temporal language you would use if it was a week in the future – keep in the present tense.

9. Repeat Steps 6, 7 and 8 for each time marker until he reaches the vision or the end of the part of the project selected for the exercise.
10. Instruct your client that in a moment you will guide him to take one more step off into one month after the last time marker. You will then turn him around, and with his eyes still closed, he can imagine looking back at the end result, the vision, and describe it.

11. Walk the client one month after the end of the project, turn him around and ask him to describe how it all went.

    Let him talk and take notes. Then prompt by asking:

    • What worked?
    • What didn’t?
    • What additional resources would you have allocated to the project and when?
    • With hindsight, what would you do differently if you had the chance to go back and do it again?
12. Instruct your client that in a moment you will walk him back through time, bringing back all the new insights and understandings he has gained with hindsight.

13. Walk him slowly back down the timeline, stopping at each time marker and asking him to make any adjustments based on his hindsight and to nod his head when he is ready to move on.

    Repeat this process until you get him back to the original starting point, the present, the now. Turn him around to face the future timeline once more and ask him to open his eyes.

14. Ask him to ‘look off into the future now, having had made those adjustments, and notice what’s different’.

    Keep quiet and let him speak.

Common responses from doing this exercise are that firstly people say ‘that was weird’; and many feel they’ve actually lived and walked through the project. Some things to look out for in regard to such responses when taking notes for your client are:

• Timeframe changes for the project: We could have done it quicker, sooner. We need to take longer and give ourselves more time.
• Obstacles and roadblocks: We were stuck, this is how we dealt with it, it was unresolved.
• Gaps in knowledge: We didn’t have the skills, capabilities or resources – we would have been better outsourcing to experts or people with more experience.
• Changes in motivation: The vision seems more alluring now or less compelling. If less, then explore why it is less compelling.

Knowing the route and moving in the right direction

During the Independent Perspective exercise in the previous section ‘Exercise 2: Detached Perspectives’, what commonly comes to light are areas where more detailed planning is required and where obvious milestones or check points exist. We suggest you do the Perspective exercise before going into any detailed planning. Putting the notes generated from the exercise onto a wall chart or white board is a simple and effective way to create a detailed project plan, highlighting options and choices and the milestones for the project.

By breaking any journey down (whether travelling or journeying through a project) into small chunks with checkpoints, it makes what may seem an insurmountable task seem possible. This method is essential for ensuring that you remain on course; and even if you’re off course by a few degrees, you’re always generally heading in the right direction. Small course corrections along the project journey are easier to make than big adjustments.

The intelligent business also factors key performance indicators (KPIs) into their plans, measuring and evaluating what’s working as well as having a strategy for adjusting to the feedback received. Infinite KPIs exist for a business to measure, so selecting which are the most useful is important. The selection will be idiosyncratic to the business you’re coaching.

Useful common KPIs to consider are

• Revenue generated from specific marketing
• Customer satisfaction
• Customer lifecycle (paying attention to when and why customers leave)
• Measuring procurement and acquisition
• Measuring business and project deliverables

Scheduling when to rest and refuel

Even a high-performance Formula One car racing at top speed has to come in for regular pit stops to refuel and repair. During any project lifecycle, the people involved may experience project fatigue unless given the chance to step away from the project. Factor into clients project plans rest and refresh time. Most people report that insights and breakthroughs in ideas happen when they’ve stopped thinking about an idea or when they’re most relaxed, on holiday or have a shower.

Recommend to clients that they schedule in workshops (often unrelated directly to the project) or project breaks so their people can slow down, move to a different environment and get a new perspective on the project. In Chapter 2, we address the value of a third-party perspective and being able to see the woods for the trees.

A great time to stop and rest and refuel is if something goes wrong.

Have you ever been a passenger in a car when the driver has missed a turning? What do most drivers do? They tend to speed up, so now they are heading even quicker in the wrong direction. In business if a project takes a wrong turn, instead of panicking or reacting, you have the opportunity to slow down, rest, refresh, get a clear mind and re-assess the situation.

Use the acronym STADAC as a prompt to

• Stop: Take some time out to get a clear mind.
• Think: Enjoy clarity from having a calm mind (head to Chapter 10 for some effective coaching techniques for achieving this).
• Assess: Review the choices available.
• Decide: Make the best choice at that moment in time.
• Action: Take action and get commitment from all involved.
• Check: Ensure you’re getting the results you desire.

Gathering feedback and feeding forwards

Avoid project meetings being simply a nice time to catch up. You need to ensure that they’re productive and coach your clients to use this meeting framework to set the stage for actioning and reviewing a plan throughout its lifecycle.

Structure your project meetings to address the following (see Figure 9-3):

1. Clarity: Remind the team of the vision and the values, the ‘why’ they are there.
2. Attitude: Create the space for open, honest, truthful, committed dialogue.
3. Realism: Get the facts first, then the opinions afterwards.

4. Actions: Ensure that everyone is fully accountable and takes responsibility for his part of the project and the action steps taken after the meeting.

   Committing to the action steps is the key to turning feedback into the adjustments that keep a plan on track.

Checking that the plan is on track

In addition to using the meeting framework as an opportunity to coach your clients to test and check the status of a project, ask the questions in Chapter 19 to test and challenge an individual or team to see whether they’re on track. Regular checks enable minor course adjustments to be made as the plan unfolds and evolves. Three key indicators to pay attention to are:

• Time
• Money
• Effort

Anyone who has ever had building works done has probably had a negative personal experience of the fact that, of the things humans are notoriously poor at estimating, the worst are the time it takes to complete tasks, the costs involved and the amount of work involved. Allowing contingencies for time, money and effort usually caters for such slippages, but knowing where overruns can seriously damage a business is mission critical.

Knowing when quitting is good

Nick Jenkins, founder of moonpig.com – an online greeting card business – was the owner of a company that made losses for its first five years of trading. He eventually sold the business in 2011 to Photobox for £120 million. All business owners and entrepreneurs recognise the importance of resilience, yet many examples are evident where perseverance and throwing more time, money and effort at a plan does not have a happy ending.

Use Figure 9-4 and the following sailing metaphor to coach individuals, teams and organisations to evaluate when is the right time to change direction or to call it a day. When sailing you have an end destination in mind (vision), you have a course calculated (plan A), which takes into account ever-changing conditions such as wind, weather, tides and currents (represented by the Information Grid).

A sailor is constantly navigating and making course corrections with the destination in mind. There come times when, despite the best will in the world, conditions have changed or are so against him that a course change is needed (a new vision, plan B). If a sailor fails to listen to the feedback, he risks entering danger zone waters when he’s too late to change course and may encounter a time when the only option left is the life raft (plan C).

When a business decision is made to alter course, make plan B the new plan A and use all the techniques in this chapter to make sure that the plan is robust and fit for purpose.

A coach’s role isn’t to make these hard decisions for a client. However, as a coach, you have a moral and professional responsibility to point out to clients if their dogged perseverance may end in them hitting the rocks and sinking the business.

Acknowledging a job well done

Has anyone ever told you that you were doing a good coaching job? Did you have a spring in your step and a refreshed vigour for your work? Have you ever done some great coaching work and had it gone unnoticed – after all, you’re simply doing your job, aren’t you?

We are all at times internally referenced, and we check with ourselves that we are doing a good job or making a good decision or are falling short of the mark. We are all at times externally referenced where we check with others whether we are doing a good job or making a good decision.

Even self-starting independent people occasionally need an external verification that they’re doing a good job and are on-track. Otherwise, they run the risk of being so internally referenced that they ignore external feedback.

Coach your clients to value external acknowledgement about how they’re performing and to sincerely recognise and acknowledge the work done by their colleagues. Keep the team on board; even if they’re predominantly internally referenced, let them know that they’re valued.