Raise your hand if you want to be successful in business. Come on now, raise it high.

I bet you raised your hand. Who wouldn’t? Why do we go out the door everyday to ply our trades? We want to achieve our own definition of success in business and in life.

No matter what your definition of success there are certain realities that have to be faced. The one reality that so many business people fail to face involves the plan for their business. Let me furnish you with a recent practical example.

I pay a visit to a dynamic and growing company. This company is involved in an ever changing industry. This company is aggressively seeking new clients with a wide variety of complex needs. This company is growing in numbers of employees and revenue. This company has a portion of their operations in complete turmoil, jeopardizing the whole of their operations. My job is to help them pull it all together.

I plan to help them by starting with a basic tenet of business promulgated in the classic book, Seven Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen Covey. That tenet is this: Begin with the end in mind. In other words, first think about your desired outcomes and then figure out how to achieve those goals.

Upon arrival at this company I meet with great resistance in the form of the head of the department in turmoil. I’m told things like, “We should figure out the day to day things first.” “We must address our present operational issues.” “We’ll pull it all together as soon as we get the daily processes working.” I ask when that “soon” will be. I don’t get an answer.

The company that I provide as an example has a problem that is all too typical for businesses. The strategic goals (the big picture) are cast aside in order to feed everyday processes (little pictures) that don’t really tie together.

There are many analogies to describe this situation in other terms. Imagine workers attempting to build a house without an architectural plan. Carpenters show up and they’re told to start framing walls. Plumbers are told to install pipe. Electricians are told to install wire. They all know their respective jobs, but they don’t know how they’re supposed to fit together. Do you think that house will ever get built? Do you think the owner’s vision of the house will be realized?

Many businesses take the same approach to their daily operations. Managers tell workers to perform tasks without relying on a plan to address the end that a company seeks. The result of this approach is turmoil. Workers plow away at tasks devoid of larger meaning. And managers sweat, hoping that enough gets done to please their bosses while promising to turn over a new leaf tomorrow.

Tomorrow is today folks. It’s never too late to step to the plate and assess the big picture. You see, eventually the house of cards collapses and everyone loses out. You want to be a success so you commit to starting with the end in mind. Let’s take the first step together.

Start the exercise by asking yourself a question. What is the single most important goal I am trying to achieve in the business I’m in? Pick just one to start with. We’re at 30,000 feet now.

Once you have that ultimate goal decided you’re ready for the next step. Break that single goal into a handful of more specific goals. The more specific goals should be directly tied to the specific needs of your customers, or whoever you need to serve in your business situation. In order to do this, you must truly understand the needs of your clients in order to develop the goals in steps one and two. This process can never be completed in a vacuum. If you attempt to draft your goals without your clients in mind, there’s a very good chance that you won’t meet their most critical needs. That means that you need to take some time to speak to your clients and find out what they really need prior to moving forward.

Up to this point, an example of this process might look something like this:

Ultimate Goal: To provide my customers with the most convenient and efficient service possible.

Specific Goals:

a. Deliver a high quality service or product.
b. Deliver products or services quickly.
c. Provide top notch support for the service or product.

By taking the first two steps you’ve set yourself up for success. You’ve begun to develop a solid plan that addresses the big picture. There’s still a lot more to do though. You’ll want to take each of those specific goals and then break it down into smaller parts. For each one of the specific goals you should create one or more tasks that will allow you to fulfill that goal. The tasks are the specific duties that people in your organization will be responsible for. For example:

Specific Goal: Deliver a high quality product or service.

Sub-Tasks: Assess client needs; Analyze current market for product or service; create design standards; Implement production controls; etc.

Understanding the detailed tasks involved that support your goals allows you to go to a much more granular level of detail. You’re moving into the little pictures now. That’s fine because you have the big picture to keep guiding you.

Each of these subtasks involves five questions. The subtask itself addresses the first question: What? The other four questions are: Why are we doing this task? Who is primarily responsible for this task? When will this task be performed? How will this task be performed?

Investigating the answers to these questions will reveal many things about your business, not the least of which will include the gaps that exist in your processes. The gaps are the points in your process where you are unable to satisfactorily fulfill a need. These are areas that must be addressed and because you’ve taken the time to start with the big picture you will be able to address them.

At the end of this process of discovery you should have two outputs that give your business a decided edge over your less meticulous peers. Output one is an analysis of your gaps along with a plan to address those gaps. Output two is a detailed document that describes all the goals, tasks and answers to the five important questions mentioned above. This document is your operating guide. It should be to the point and easy to read. You can (and should) use this document as a tool to train employees on how your business works.

All of a sudden who have resources that help to drive your business forward while allowing you to focus more on the future. You can think more about tommorrow and less about the worries of today. Your people now have the tools and the knowledge to get the job done in an orderly manner with much less supervision.

The development of a plan such as this always requires a significant commitment of time and effort. Many companies are not willing to take the time to make this kind of commitment to improving their business. Take this advice and you’ll watch your less ambitious competitors disappear in the rear view mirror.