How much time do you invest in your team or company planning? It is very common for managers and directors to be the busiest people in a company, always involved in different areas and with the greatest responsibilities. The volume of tasks often inhibits something very important: planning. It seems difficult to have time to plan, but this should be a priority task.
Abraham Lincoln has the right quote to understand the importance of planning:
“Give me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the ax.”
We can divide this sentence into 3 different points: objective, planning and action.
The goal is simple, to chop down a tree. To chop down the tree a tool is needed, the ax, which, as planned, would be sharp, and without planning, it would be like a blind knife. In a hypothetical scenario, a blind ax, even working for six hours, might not be able to chop down the tree. Just as sharpening the ax makes it easier to chop the tree, planning a company’s steps saves time and effort.
Still within the quote about the chop, the lack of planning could bring: tiredness, useless effort, delay, frustration and failure to reach the goal. And these are exactly the same things that can happen without a clear planning.
Setting goals and planning how they will be achieved is as important as taking action. That is why this article brings 2 tools used by large companies worldwide, for business managers and entrepreneurs who want to improve their results.
SWOT analysis
To set your goals, it is necessary to identify several characteristics of your company. We recommend the SWOT analysis for this first stage. SWOT is the acronym in English for Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats, characteristics divided between internal and external factors to the organization:
Positive factors x Negative factors
Internal factors: Strengths x Weaknesses
External factors: Opportunities x Threats
First of all, open a document, notepad or spreadsheet to write down each of these characteristics. We have developed a spreadsheet model that you can access by clicking here.
Step 1: Understand how you will define each quadrant:
Strengths: what are the positive internal factors of your company? You can ask the following questions to list your strengths:
– What are our best products?
– What are our competitive advantages?
– What solutions do we offer to customers?
– What activities do we perform better?
Weaknesses: What are your company’s negative internal factors? You can ask the following questions to list your weaknesses:
– What are our worst products?
– What makes our customers dissatisfied?
– Why does the customer choose the competition?
– Are the teams qualified to do the job?
Opportunities: what are the positive external factors of your company? Remember that external factors are not under your company’s control, so they can vary. You can ask the following questions to list your opportunities:
– What are the weaknesses of the competition?
– Does the economic scenario have any advantages?
Threats: What are the negative external factors of your company? You can ask the following questions to list your threats:
– What are the strengths of the competition that your company does not have?
– Does the economic scenario damage the company?
Once all the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats are listed, proceed to the second step.
Step 2: define what to do to achieve the goals.
In this step you must answer the following questions:
– What to do to potentiate the company’s strengths?
– What to do to neutralize the company’s weaknesses?
– What to do to take advantage of the company’s opportunities?
– What to do to end the company’s threats?
In our free SWOT analysis model we have written some examples that can help you answer these questions. Warning: do not confuse what to do with how to do it.
Only after defining what your company or team needs to do, describe how it will be achieved and what is the deadline for achieving this goal. Check out an example below:
Example: what to do to neutralize the weakness “low engagement of the commercial team”.
Objective: Increase the engagement of the commercial team.
How to do it: Schedule weekly meetings to track the metrics and share ideas.
Deadline: start by July 2020.
Do you understand how it is easier to set goals and how to achieve them when you know exactly the points that need improvement?
With all this information noted, your planning will be much easier to carry out. The SWOT analysis will allow your company to be better prepared to face external factors and make increasingly secure decisions.
OKRs – Objectives and Key Results
With the objectives set, deadlines set and the step by step on how to get there, it is also necessary to understand how to know whether the goal has been achieved or not.
The OKR methodology was developed by the president of Intel in the 70s in order to adapt quickly to the changes that the market brought. Using this methodology, you will be able to establish a management and performance process in a structured way, align communication between different teams and employees, make the company’s objectives and culture clearer for the employee and, mainly, show the employee how their tasks are important for the good performance of the team.
Right above, when we talked about the SWOT analysis, we showed that with it you will discover your company’s objectives. This is the first step of the OKR methodology!
Step 1: objectives. What do I want to achieve?
Step 2: key results. How can I measure what I have achieved?
If you don’t want to do the SWOT analysis to use the OKR methodology, there is no problem, it is not a mandatory step, but you must list the objectives that your company wants to achieve. Think of qualitative and operational goals.
The key results (KR) are the criteria by which you will assess whether the objectives have been reached and, according to the OKR methodology, it is mandatory that they are quantitative. For example: in the company’s commercial sector, the objective is to make the company generate more revenue, so one of the key results of this objective may be to increase the number of customers in the industry by 50%.
We have also developed a model of OKRs for you to use in your company, just click here to access.
OKRs can also be divided into different levels: organizational level, with general objectives for the entire company; departmental level, with objectives defined by teams (as we used in the example above); and the individual level, with defined objectives for each employee.
Organizational level
Organizational OKRs will guide the entire company to improve performance. They must be annual, semi-annual or quarterly. Check an example below:
OKR: Expanding business internationally
KR 1: Have at least 5 new customers in other countries.
KR 2: Having international sales above R$ 1 million.
KR 3: Increase the number of international opportunities by 30%.
Departmental level
The OKRs of a department must be more specific than the organizational ones, since each team has an area of expertise. They must be quarterly, monthly or biweekly. Check out an example below from a “Customer Success” team:
OKR: Being a reference in the after-sales relationship
KR 1: Achieve NPS of 80 with customers.
KR 2: Collect 50 positive testimonials.
KR 3: Respond to 100% of complaints within 24 hours.
Individual level
The individual OKRs must focus on the individual performance of the employee. They must be quarterly, monthly or biweekly. Check out an example below of an employee with the position of “Seller”:
OKR: Be the best seller
KR 1: Close 5 new contracts with new customers.
KR 2: Upsell 10 current customers.
KR 3: Obtain Social Selling certificate.
The goals will not be achieved overnight, certainly. That is why you should also track the progress of these goals weekly or biweekly, that way you can identify failures, improvements, goals reached before the deadline or even a goal that is prevented from being reached by an unforeseen factor.
Ready to start planning your company’s unbridled success? Download our SWOT Analysis and OKR Framework models for free and start a new phase in your management.
Do you want to give wings to your business? Discover Aeropark Pedra Branca, a new industrial hub in Santa Catarina, located in Pedra Branca Creative City, a smart city with everything you need within walking distance! The Aeropark has lots for industries and hangars and access to the Santa Catarina Aero Club runway, a feature that will raise your company to new heights.
References:
