Success.. a Goal or a Wish?

Success... a Goal or a Wish?

All of us have different notions of success. Each one of us wants to get there!  And yet do we really ever take a step back & plan for it?

The most referred to term ‘planning’ is the classic word in English literature that we tend to use a lot but practice less.

So, what is planning really?

I would guess that many of you reading this article are already fairly good time managers. You get a lot done. You are fairly efficient. You know how to make lists and check things off. So if you’re such a hard worker and know how to get a lot accomplished each day and yet why do you often feel like you’re spinning your wheels? Why is it, when all is said and done, and a week…a month…a year goes by…do you feel frustrated by all that is left undone? Why is it that all the things you SHOULD have done are not and you did the things you SHOULDN’T have?

Well, we spend our time in certain ways because we choose to. There is nothing we do without choosing, although our choices are not always deliberate or visible. We have the choice to work or not to work, to write that report or not, to take the phone call or to wait. Think about it, our choices make are way.

Steven Covey calls planning “sharpening the axe”. It is the art if of taking the time to make time.

Planning is the difference between being REACTIVE and PROACTIVE. When you don’t plan, you end up responding to the day’s events as they occur. 

We all know the ‘Why’ of the planning. Why it is important, why it is done etc...  What we lag at is the ‘How’?

 

Research identifies innovation in the planning field – where people have tried to do things differently in a wide range of innovative ways. It illustrates how places can be transformed through planning intervention.

 

We bring you a sneak peek into some such innovative and ‘out of the box’ methods of planning practices bringing in the best of results;

 

Goals-based Strategic Planning

Goals-based strategic planning focuses on the company's mission statement, the goals the company establishes toward achieving that mission, the strategies used to reach those goals and the plan for a course of action. Techniques used in goals-based planning include identifying the company's strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats, establishing action plans and monitoring the company's progress toward its stated goals.

Alignment Model

When internal departments are working at cross purposes, they can attempt to get them back on track by employing the alignment model. The general intent of the alignment model is to make sure that each department works together to achieve the company's mission.

Scenario Planning

Key is to take into account both best-case and worst-case business scenarios. When we employ innovative strategic planning methods to anticipate these scenarios, we are better prepared in the event that these scenarios come to pass. Scenario planning considers future events that can affect the viability of a business, as well as developing best-case, worst-case and reasonable-case scenarios around such events and determining a course of action for each potential scenario.

Organic Planning

Organic-based strategic planning methods use the company's vision and values, rather than goals and objectives, as their primary focus. The methods involved in organic strategic planning include articulating the company's overall vision and cultural values, examining the processes used to achieve that vision while complying with those values and relying more on "learning by doing" instead of on mechanistic procedures.

Let’s face it 21^st century is all about being the ‘Master of all & Jack of none’ very contradictory to the conventional saying.

The trick? It is to master the planning methods & devise a combination plan best suited,

for SUCCESS TO BE A GOAL WITH A PLAN and not just A WISH! 

 - MRCC Corporate Communication Team