Are you satisfied with your level of involvement in your company’s planning process? Our research says probably not.
Yet being involved in planning provides people with several benefits, including:
- increased buy-in
- an ability to connect your work to the organization’s goals
- more clarity on ‘how’ the plan will be achieved
- heightened levels of work engagement
We are ‘they’
One leader I worked with always told our management team that ‘we are they’, meaning that when people said that ‘they’ created the strategic plan or ‘they’ made a decision, we were the ‘they’ people were referring to. When employees are involved in the planning process, the ‘we’ becomes more inclusive. This not only makes for a better plan but also creates more buy-in – because people helped create the plan themselves!
You should define how the plan will be delivered
When we talk about being involved in planning, it comes down to helping create the how. Employees do not usually expect to be involved in creating the strategic vision or that year’s strategic objectives. People are typically more interested in planning the work they will do themselves – and that is exactly what is missing from most planning methods.
In most organizations, leaders (ie: ‘they’) hold a planning session to define the strategic objectives and the targets for the year. ‘They’ will usually do a good job of setting the path forward, but ‘they’ are usually too far from the actual work to accurately define how the goals will be achieved and how the work will be done. There is where you need to be involved.
Part of this involvement includes creating Complete Goals. Unlike most planning methods, SupportingLines goes beyond simply setting outcomes. We involve the organization’s employees to identify the most important work required to deliver the plan. To ensure this work is delivered employees establish formal commitments, or supporting lines, between people accountable for the goals and people who agree to deliver the support.
Cultivate a high-performance team
Involving employees in setting the supporting lines between teams is powerful. In our experience, teams that set complete goals with the SupportingLines framework have achieved up to 100% of their goals and set sales records within 6 months. As if that wasn’t enough, these teams have seen work engagement increase dramatically within 3 months or stay strong despite significant business challenges.
Jeff Smith
Jeff is the Founder & CEO of SupportingLines. He is also a certified Master Corporate Executive Coach, seasoned C-suite business leader and yoga instructor.