Does Your Business Plan Have ADD?

It doesn't matter how many great ideas an individual, team, or company comes up with. Until you implement one, you haven’t made any progress. Execution is what builds lasting success, and splitting your business’ energy among too many outcomes can hinder your ability to execute good ideas and achieve your goals.

Fragmentation vs Integration: Many organizations go through an elaborate planning process. While their goals may be strategic, their process is lengthy and involved. If your method is overly time consuming, it takes away from more important work. More problematic, reliance on the idea generation phase of planning frequently results in a fragmented outcome. Whether you measure the results of your planning process in goals, objectives, or KPIs, if you’re trying to achieve too many outcomes, your business starts to suffer from Attention Deficit Disorder. It’s tough to achieve your desired execution when your attention is split in a million directions.

Your Top Three Goals: One of the keys to execution is focus. You may want to achieve a hundred different things, but most of us find it impossible to focus if we’re intent on more than four all-important goals. In fact, four may be too many. I would suggest erring on the side of success: choose your top three goals and be uncompromising in your pursuit of excellence in these areas. A relentless focus makes a positive outcome all the more likely. 

Choose three goals on which to focus: Customer satisfaction, revenue and products (improving existing base or adding new ones). It may not seem like a lot on paper, but executing these three goals is a good focus, as well as, devoting one hundred percent of your efforts into their integration. It’s become a formula for success. Every year you should add or improve your products or services. Every day you should work to improve customer satisfaction. And every moment, you should seek to increase your revenue. For us, a focus on executing these three goals is the key to prosperity.

What's your business plan like? Does it include these goals?