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Planning Process

INSYNC Management Solutions Planning Process

If you’ve spent time working in middle or upper management in any business, you would have participated in, or possibly led a planning session. I’m also going to bet, most of you have been involved in a planning session where it was crystal clear that the person in charge had absolutely no idea what they were doing and everything seemed made up then and there!

I hear this complaint so often I’m sharing the technique I use, and teach, for how to facilitate a planning session. I’m not talking about the simple, ad hoc ‘who, what, where, when, how, and how much’, planning sessions, although they are also problematic so follow the link to my article on developing Immediate Action Plans. I’m talking about detailed and often complex planning, necessary to effect change, implement a new initiative, or solve a “Wicked Problem“.

Whether the planning needed is very simple or extremely complex you need a process to follow; otherwise, you really don’t know what you are doing! Imagine if you had a simple, repeatable, scalable process to guide you through your planning session anytime you need to be “that person in charge”.

You’d be surprised how many organisations don’t have structured planning processes in place. Some organisations use processes such as the Observe, Orientate, Decide , Act Loop, ( OODA-loop), Multi-criteria Decision Analysis (MCDA), or even Plan, Do, Check, Act (PDCA).

Being a former member of the Australian Army, I’ve been trained in the use of the Military Appreciation Process (MAP), and in the years since leaving the military, I have used an adaptation of the MAP to help structure my planning. I have also taught this process to clients to help them add structure to their planning sessions.

I have included my version of the MAP based planning process in this article as a model you can use to guide you through your future planning session. This planning model is deliberately basic on the surface to make it easy to interpret and allow you to start using it straight away. With a little training, you can dive into the detail, unpack its power and use it to guide you through the development of very complex plans to address even the most difficult problems.

To employ the model, start in the centre, work your way out, and then work clockwise from blue to red, to orange, and finally green. Like most processes, this model is iterative, so when you get to the end, you may choose to continue to use the model to further refine your plans over time.

“In preparing for battle, I have always found that plans are useless, but planning is indispensable.”

General Dwight D. Eisenhower.

 

 

Good Follower?

There can be no leadership without followers. The problem is, some followers are better than others!

Some followers follow a leader out of necessity, such as their lives depend on it, others follow out of a genuine belief in the cause or the message, whilst some follow out of sheer curiosity! Some will refuse to follow or will be disruptive and difficult because they don’t trust or believe in the leader, or they feel they should be the leader. Aristotle said:

 

“He who cannot be a good follower cannot be a good leader.”

This is as true today as at any time in history. But does this mean being a follower is an experience necessary for becoming a good leader?

Many people are able to understand how their subordinates think and feel, and don’t need to experience good or bad leadership to know the difference. They possess the ability to lead well through their empathy, genuine good character, and the application of sound leadership principles. An example of this is Officer training in the military. I have seen some very good leaders who started their careers as Officer Cadets, having never followed a leader outside of the home, school, or sporting teams.

I have also seen some not-so-good leaders who served as soldiers before transferring to become Officers. This is not to say that it plays out one way or the other all of the time and I know many outstanding converts. However, it is likely that effective leaders who start their journey higher up the leadership ladder already possessing the foundations needed to be a good leader will climb higher.

I always stress to clients and mentees that there are no born leaders. Leaders are shaped by their environment, their experience, their conditioning, and the wisdom of their mentors. Starting out higher up the leader ladder doesn’t contradict Aristotle’s notion that you must first be a good follower.

No matter where you start your leadership journey, you will almost always be subordinate to one or more other leaders; thus, you may be a leader to some, but you will likely be a follower to others. Those who ascend directly to positions of leadership still need the ability to be good followers or at least understand what it takes to be loyal to a leader. After all, we all wear different ‘hats’ as we ascend as leaders and it is rare that anyone reports to no one! If you have empathy for those who follow you, you don’t need to spend as much time being a follower in order to become a good leader. However, if you are a leader of some and a follower of others, as most are, you need to be loyal to your leader and always strive to align your leadership of others with your “leader’s intent”. 

The risk of being a long-term follower with no leadership responsibility is that it can have the unintended consequence of conditioning you to believe that you are not cut out to be a leader. Being a follower can be a comfortable existence, especially if you are led by a highly competent leader who is truly empathetic and takes care of all your needs. Prolonged periods of ‘servitude’ to such a leader may condition you to need others to make decisions for you and not allow you to develop self-belief and confidence in your ability to lead. If you can’t visualise yourself out in front, taking charge and making decisions, you probably can’t lead.

Whilst you don’t strictly need to have been a follower to be a good leader, you do need to know how to follow first. It’s comparable to being an academic such as a teacher with no real-world experience in the subjects you teach.

As you mature as a leader you will likely come to realise that Servant Leadership is arguably the most effective way to lead. Servant Leaders understand that the role of a leader is to enable and grow your followers by serving them. This is not to say that you are their servant, but rather, you take on the role of the leader who ensures your followers are given every opportunity to succeed and you clear any roadblocks for them. Your position as a leader is both a privilege and a responsibility, not a right or a reward.

Making the Least Worse Decision

 

Being a leader means you are going to have to make decisions. You can’t sit on the fence or allow fear or inertia to prevent you from taking action. Your decisions won’t always be correct but you must be willing to make them and you must be prepared to be wrong and accept responsibility for any consequences.

There’s an old saying; “a 90% solution on time is better than a 100% solution too late”. I tend to agree with this statement and have applied it to great effect over many years. There is another interesting fact about decisions. They’re seldom 100% correct and almost never 100% wrong. This means your decisions are likely to be praised by those who agree and ridiculed by those who don’t.

Making a decision and acting on it doesn’t mean you are right, but it does mean you must be willing to be wrong. We don’t always have all the information or time needed to make the perfect decision, so we need to learn how to commit to the ‘least worse decision‘ based on the best information available at the time.

Leaders have to be willing to make a decision and stick to it. My caveat for this is “make the RIGHT decision and stick to it”.

So how do you that?

Good decision making is a critical skill for any leader. It’s well documented that most people are not rational when it comes to making decisions and most decisions are emotionally driven and based on individuals or group biases disguised as ‘experience’. You only have to look at the current geopolitical decisions being made by leaders who are not thinking critically and are being pressured by group bias and emotion, to see how bad this problem can get.

Leaders need to hone their decision-making skills and one of the best ways to do this is through the study and application of critical thinking. I highly recommend to anyone responsible for making decisions, that they read Daniel Kahneman’s “Thinking Fast and Slow”. I also recommend “Think Smarter” by Michael Kallet as it provides some very practical ways to apply critical thinking to decision making. Leaders need to lead with less emotion and cognitive bias, and more critical thought and logic. This is the foundation of good decision making.

At the same time, leaders need to have the courage to lead and that means they must be prepared to make decisions. Collaboration is important but, in the end, if you are in charge you better be prepared to stand up and make a decision, or get out of the way and let the leader make it for you!

Stoic Leadership

Being a leader is hard work. You always need to be out in front, inspiring your followers with your enthusiasm, motivation, and drive. You need to be the one with the vision for where your organisation needs to be in three, five, ten, and thirty years. You need to be a mentor to your peers and subordinate leaders, a teacher for junior leaders, and a role model to all. Intelligent, charismatic, connected, empathetic and compassionate, a great communicator with high integrity; but also self-motivated and driven. The buck stops with you. You are both responsible and accountable for the success or failure of everything you preside over.

How best to cope with this tremendous burden of responsibility? In my view, the answer is not in the future but in the teaching of the great stoics of the past. Embracing the wisdom and teaching of the stoics gives leaders the ability to remain calm and focus on what they can control and accept what they can not. It provides clarity of mind and resilience of character, especially in times of crisis.

For leaders, stoicism is the ability to separate emotions from feelings and disassociate emotions from the situation. This is not to say that stoics ignore emotions, rather they acknowledge them but choose not to allow them, or those of others, to direct their decisions or actions. Emotions are judgements that involve beliefs about value. We often apply disproportionate value to things we deem important or sacred to us and this drives our behaviour. Being stoic is to remain objective and use logic rather than emotion to shape action.

This is often easier said than done as the more important the issue or sacred the artefact, the higher the emotional response will be and the harder it is to remain objective.

Centred around the time of the Vietnam War, society was transforming from a generation that valued morality and self-control to one where freedom of expression was paramount. Young people were disenfranchised and resorted to the use of mind-altering drugs and spiritual pursuits. The influence of Libertarianism, the Hippie Movement and the expression of free love saw a shift from the ’stiff upper lip’ mindset of the WWII generation to that of the more emotionally expressive Baby Boomers. The push for people, men in particular, to express their feelings and share their emotions has continued to be the advice of psychologists and gurus alike.

The belief that bottling up your emotions will result in you becoming overwhelmed by them and eventually ‘exploding’ is widely held. However, practitioners of stoicism seem to miraculously and relatively easily cope with their emotions by understanding that they are nothing more than feelings that can be acknowledged, understood, and moved past.

This is not to say that strong feelings and emotions don’t have a chemical impact on the body, they do, if you let them. However, those who can control their emotions are also able to greatly reduce the rise of cortisol and take advantage of the power of adrenaline, rather than being reduced to a whimpering mess lying in a corner in the foetal position.

Research shows that leaders who are able to control their emotions and respond effectively to difficult situations are more likely to be successful. This is because they are better equipped to handle stress, make objective decisions, communicate effectively, and build trust with their team. These skills are crucial for success as a leader and are associated with higher levels of emotional intelligence and self-awareness.

Additionally, leaders who can regulate their emotions and respond appropriately in challenging situations are perceived as more credible, trustworthy, and effective by their followers.

However, the increased representation and impact of diverse perspectives in the workforce has contributed to a growing emphasis on emotional expression in the workplace. Historically, the vast majority of leadership positions in corporations were dominated by men, with many women pursuing careers in caring fields such as nursing, teaching, and childcare. As more women have taken on leadership positions in corporations, norms regarding emotional expression and expectations have shifted.

Nowadays, it is more widely accepted for individuals of all genders to express their emotions in the workplace, including crying. However, this does not necessarily reflect a healthy response to adversity and can stem from a wider cultural influence that reflects a sort of social neuroticism that has become prevalent in modern times.

The push for emotional expression in the workplace aims to create a more inclusive and equal environment, where all individuals feel comfortable sharing their feelings. This shift has been facilitated by the increased prominence of Human Resource Management (HR), as a trusted leadership advisory function within the boardroom and has likely been influenced by the growing dominance of women in senior HR roles.

Emotions drive us and can be involuntary responses to stimuli. Adopting a stoic approach to leadership does not mean ignoring emotions, but rather recognising and acknowledging them while choosing to make decisions based on logic and without excessive displays of emotions.

Displaying these and succumbing to your emotions will not help you deal with the situation or be a better leader. Rather, they will weigh heavily on you in the future when you reflect on how you handled the situation and how you conducted yourself. Being stoic means remaining true to your values and beliefs but not falling apart if these are challenged or threatened by an external force. It means being true to yourself and maintaining your moral character and virtue above all else.

The four Stoic Virtues are courage, justice, moderation (temperance), and wisdom.

Courage: Leaders can exhibit courage by standing up for what they believe in and not being afraid to take calculated risks.

Justice: Leaders can embody justice by being fair and impartial in their decision-making and treating others with respect and kindness.

Moderation: Leaders can practice moderation by avoiding excess and finding balance in their actions and decisions.

Wisdom: Leaders can incorporate wisdom by continually seeking out knowledge and understanding, as well as using reason and critical thinking when making decisions.

Incorporating these virtues can help leaders make ethical decisions, inspire trust and respect among their team members, and lead by example. They can also help leaders stay calm and level-headed during difficult times.

The ability to remain calm and stay focused also has a way of soothing others and is a powerful form of leading by example. Being a stoic leader does not mean leading without empathy or compassion and requires the leader to possess a high degree of Emotional Intelligence.

Stoicism is the ultimate form of self-regulation and when coupled with the other elements of Emotional Intelligence sets the leader apart from those with less self-control.

We could all benefit from more stoic leadership. If you want to know more about leading in a more stoic manner, I recommend checking out the Daily Stoic

Management, Command and Leadership…

Most business professionals are familiar with the terms ‘management’ and ‘leadership’ and some even understand the difference. You know the old adages, ‘leaders do the right things – managers do things right’ and ‘we lead people and manage things’. Robert Sutton’s 2010 HBR article describes the distinction between leadership and management and proposes that leaders who distance themselves from management, as though it’s beneath them are out of touch. To use a popular project management saying, they’re ‘throwing dead cats over the fence’.

In my view, I believe we need to dive a little deeper. When I look at the iconic leaders of the past, I see an obvious distinction that I don’t see today. There’s a glaring difference between great leaders of the past such as Dr. Martin Luther King Jr, Gandhi, and Nelson Mandela compared with Winston Churchill, Napoleon, or Genghis khan. The difference is that Dr. King, Gandhi, and Mandela led with the absence of authority and had to rely on their ability to influence their followers. When your followers have no choice but to follow your directions or suffer consequences, you are not leading per se. Rather, you are exercising your authority through command.

Unless you’ve served time in the military or similar emergency services, you probably wouldn’t think you’ve worked for a commander. In fact, you’ve probably never contemplated the differences between a leader and a commander, which is ironic as ‘command’ is what most people in “leadership positions” actually exercise – not leadership.

For true leadership to occur, there needs to be an absence of ‘authority’. An example of this is Dr. Martin Luther King, who was able to lead a generation of African Americans, of whom he had absolutely no authority over. He achieved this through his vision for equality and his ability to effectively articulate that vision.

So, if you have authority over the people you lead, that is, there are consequences for them not following your directions, you are a commander, not a leader! Maybe not in the military sense where insubordination and failure to comply with a lawful order is a summary offence and deserters can be shot. Rather, failing to follow your direction could result in the ‘offender’ being reprimanded or potentially fired.

In today’s world of Millennials and political correctness (PC), exercising command is seen as inappropriate; however, command is exactly what is needed. This doesn’t mean a dictatorial form of command such as Directive Control, where it’s “do as I say”, although the reality of business is that this type of command certainly still has a place. What it means in the business sense, is the employment of Mission Command, also known as “workplace empowerment”.

Mission Command provides direction by setting objectives (the Mission) and providing a set of parameters or ‘freedoms and constraints’ and a limit of exploitation known in business as delegation.

So are you a manager, a leader, or a commander? Now that you know the difference, I hope this will help you to ‘lead’ your followers better?

Incompetent Male Leaders

On the surface, this is a very polished presentation, but scratch that surface and you reveal a message that is condescending to women and misandry by a male promoting what he’s selling to an audience wanting to buy-in. It’s quite despicable really.

This video implies that incompetent male leadership is an epidemic, and it’s not! It also implies that males are viewed as competent based on them being ‘aggressive, assertive, bold, abrasive and over-confident’, but this is absurd and stereotypes all confident male leaders as incompetent, linking this to what the ‘Left’ has characterised as ‘Toxic Masculinity’. It’s unlikely that Human Resources departments the world over have included these characteristics as mandatory selection criteria for hiring senior executives.

We’ve all seen our fair share of incompetent male and female leaders. Incompetence is gender-neutral. The masculine traits describe in the video are not in themselves the problem, at least no more a problem than the over-emphasis placed on feminine traits being better for leading. They’re not.

This is unfortunately a weak argument and typical of the current, popular assault on men, especially in positions of power. On the surface the premise of this argument seems completely plausible; however, in the context of this argument, competence is much more a function of management than leadership. True leadership has little to do with technical ability, which seems to be what is being equated to competence or gender, although males tend to want to lead more because anthropologically they are more dominant than females. There are also a vast array of psychological, social, and personal reasons why females are less interested in rising to the top of organisations and into senior leadership roles, and that’s ok.

The quantity of male leaders has its roots in biology, not gender, and technical ability is a poor measure of one’s competence as a leader. It’s important not to confuse technical ability, being termed here as competence, with pure leadership. It’s also important to understand that gender is a factor in the male to female leadership ratio due to males being predisposed to being dominant.

A much more concerning fact is that many leaders are psychopaths. They exude charisma and win leadership positions but have no empathy, are toxic, and ruin organisations.

Imagine for a second that we flipped this video to be about incompetent female leaders. It would break the internet! 

Unfortunately, it is entirely probable that the quest for equality, especially the push for equal quantities (quotas) of females in leadership positions, CEO roles, and on Boards will lead to females being promoted too quickly or beyond their capability. This problem is statistically exacerbated due to the pool of suitable females being low, compared with their male counterparts. The only way to prevent incompetent females from being over-promoted is to allow their rise to be organic and at the ‘right pace’. 

Immediate Action Plans

 

In our article on the Planning Process, we provided a planning model based on the Military Appreciation Process (MAP). The MAP is a powerful tool that can help leaders develop detailed and complex plans to address new initiatives or solve “Wicked Problems“.

There will be times though when the time needed to properly research and develop a detailed plan is just not available. Your staff or those you work for will expect you to be able to quickly develop a plan of action to address an impending need. You need a systematic, simple, and effective way to quickly develop a robust plan and you need to be able to quickly brief your staff and executives in an effective, professional, and convincing manner.

This article provides a process for developing effective, consistent Immediate Action Plans (IAP) and is based on the military’s Situation, Mission, Execution, Admin & Logistics, and Command & Signals (Communication) or SMEAC for short.

SMEAC can be used in two main ways. It can be used to develop plans that are tested and rehearsed and kept at the ready to be implemented when a certain condition or set of conditions reveal themselves. It can also be used with great effect by leaders who need to quickly formulate a plan and be able to brief that plan up or down the chain of command.

Unpacking S.M.E.A.C.

Situation: Determine the issue or problem that needs to be solved. Gather assumptions. Determine any freedoms of action or constraints. Identify Why the plan needs to be developed and executed.

Mission: This is a mission statement that is written following the format; Who, What, Where, How, and by When. A military mission statement does not include the Why, however, it is important to explain the Why as part of the Situation brief.

Execution: This is where you develop the detail about how the plan will be implemented. In the military, the execution is often rehearsed.

Admin & Logistics: Identify, document, and brief your personnel on any administrative and logistic factors needed to support the execution of the plan.

Command & Communication: Understand the commanders intent 1Up & 2Up. Establish the ‘Chain of Command’ and assign authority. Determine and define who the stakeholders are, what information they need to be provided, who needs to provide it, and in what format, how frequently it needs to be provided, and over what means.

This simple process is used by junior and senior commanders to plan and execute military missions and can be adapted to help new and experienced business leaders by providing a quick, deliberate, robust, repeatable, and memorable method for developing Immediate Action Plans.

Political Correctness (PC) Gone Mad

Are organisations today acting as good corporate citizen or a “social justice warrior”? When most of us think about Diversity and Inclusion (D&I) we think about gender, race, disability, and LGBTQI+… We don’t tend to think about diversity of views or freedom of expression. But is this PC world we live in suppressing innovation and preventing necessary dialogue, in fear of offending individuals or minority groups; and is this good for business? Is ‘left’ the only direction we can drive business today? Is it only ‘ok’ to have your own views so long as they fully align with those of the organistion and are leaders leading, or following current trends? The Diversity Council Australia used the term “PC Gone Mad” in their 2019-2020 Inclusion@Work Index Report but did they go far enough?

Dr Kevin Donnelly AM, wrote ‘How Political Correctness is Destroying Australia’ released in January 2018, where he discusses the threat posed by the cultural-left to Australia and Western civilisation and explores the rise of political correctness in Australia including: the dangers of Islamic fundamentalism; Safe Schools, same-sex marriage and the LGBTQI sexuality and gender agenda; and what it means to be Australian.

Is it no longer safe to have your own thoughts or speak your mind, or do our current cohort of leaders need to stand up, apply commonsense and demonstrate genuine leadership!

Is Compassionate Leadership Weak Leadership?

The land of the brave and the home of the free is on fire and the inmates are in charge of the asylum!

Law and order are under attack with calls to ‘de-fund’ the police, and Seattle now has a newly formed nation downtown. Peaceful protests have morphed into riots and looting with the destruction of property and even the death of a black Police Officer exercising his duty to serve and protect the people who killed him. In some parts of the country, the urban landscape scape more resembles the streets of an active war zone than the peaceful suburbs that 6 months ago where the peaceful residence of the world’s leading economy.

So what, or who has allowed the “greatest country in the world’ to implode on itself?

I think the answer is obvious. Weak leadership by weak leaders!

Love him or loath him, President Donald Trump is one of the world’s most powerful and often most controversial leaders. Whether or not you agree with his politics or his leadership style, there’s no denying President Trump was elected over other leaders because the people of America believed his policies. Or maybe he was just the least bad option available at the polling booth on the day. I believe the manner in which President Trump addresses the current turmoil gripping his country will define his Presidency.

There is a famous quote by Edmund Burke in a letter he addressed to Thomas Mercer where he wrote “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.” The world is watching and wondering, what will President Trump do…

In a recent interview with Fox News Reporter Harris Faulkner, President Trump talks about how weak leadership is not compassionate.

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