Ask most club managers for insights into how they try to effectively plan in their jobs, and the jokes start flying:
“I make sure I have pencils with really big erasers.”
“I set my watch an hour behind the actual time, so I can know, and react to, what’s coming.”
“I treat planning like the old joke about exercise: When I feel the urge to do it, I lie down until it goes away.”
In a world as unpredictable as the club business, it’s not surprising that many managers can’t get real serious about the need to find time, and ways, to effectively plan not only for the longerterm (ten or five years, annually or quarterly), but even from month to month, week to week, or hour to hour. And because the service business breeds expertise in seat of-the-pants, reactive management, many club managers have learned to survive quite well in their jobs, and careers, without ever having to master the basic techniques of first putting a plan together, and then making it yield real results. In continuing to operate this way, in fact, these managers conveniently ignore that all of the time they spend showing how well they can handle crises actually reflects their inability to plan.
Even the best-intentioned managers who do want to get serious about becoming better planners—if only to try to get a break from the endless, wearying cycle of firefighting—tend to throw up their hands after they seek help through books, Internet research or other available resources, only to get tangled in a thicket of management mumbo-jumbo. As one exasperated club manager was heard to say during a break in a conference seminar on strategic planning, after the presenter had already droned on for an hour about “SWOTs” (the Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats that all consultants will tell you must be thoroughly assessed before any plans can be fashioned): “I’m ready to ‘SWOT’ him.”
Like many things about the club business, though, devising a plan to become a more effective planner doesn’t have to be the stuff of an MBA dissertation. The same common-sense survival techniques that serve club managers well in handling crises and putting out fires can also help you figure out what’s needed to bring a little planning sanity into your life. Here’s a briefing—with a minimum of consultant-speak—on what the keys to effective planning—be it strategic, long-range, or short-term, and whether it’s organizational or personal—really boil down to:
• Fight the pull of the random and the routine. On a daily basis, this means not doing things like constantly checking and reacting to email if it keeps you from focusing on the larger projects at hand, or letting every encounter and interruption send you down a new path. Over the longer term, it means assessing whether there’s always a need to hold “scheduled” meetings, even if there’s nothing new or pressing to discuss. Being beholden to any of these traps will undermine any efforts to plan productively. Each day, each week and each year, you need to be sure to set aside, and use, the dedicated time that’s needed for consistent and effective planning, no matter what “distractions” or “unavoidables” or “emergencies” may rise up to stand in its way.
• Don’t go to Plan B (before Plan A). Plans, like work, need to be prioritized according to how vital and pressing they are, and then pursued according to those rankings. But because the most important plans are also usually the most daunting—and therefore the hardest to complete or see results from—consultants suggest that you make sure to do a little bit of every type and level of planning, in the same way time management experts counsel that you should approach your daily tasks (see box). In this way, you’ll get a better feeling of accomplishment that can provide momentum for additional planning successes.
• Either eat, or throw out, the leftovers. Productivity experts suggest making a habit of carrying forward uncompleted tasks on your “to do” lists to the following day—but to never give yourself these “do over” opportunities more than twice. At that point, you either have to do them (because it’s clear you’ve been procrastinating), or discard them (which will not be an option if they’re truly important). Here, too, the same process can also be applied to planning—keep a running log of plans that need to be started, along with those that are in the works, and force yourself at regular intervals to make sure they’re either moved to the next stage, or tossed.
• Make sure your planning is multi-lingual. There are plans written with numbers (they’re called budgets) and plans written with words (they’re called strategies). There are plans written to sell ideas or generate funding (they’re called proposals) and plans written to achieve specific goals (they’re called operating or management directives). You need to be proficient in all of these different types of planning languages, and make sure your organization is maintaining a properly balanced “planning portfolio.”
• Bring in plenty of other voices, too. Every manager and department head on your team should be charged with contributing regular plans for their particular units, projects or programs.When it’s their plan, written in their words, it’s much more likely to become a valuable tool for their part of the operation. Remember that the greatest value of creating a plan does not always come from the final document or execution; sometimes the real value will lie in the dialogue, focus, clarity and learning generated by the process.
• Plans shouldn’t have too much “shelf life.” Don’t just bind up and store your plans so your office looks like a law library. Make it a point, and a habit, to bring plans into staff meetings (if not physically, at least as an agenda item, or subject of discussion and update). This will help to remind everyone that plans actually live and breathe, and also spark needed adjustments or redirections. It will also ensure that the progress of your plans can be properly measured—after all, one clear message that comes through from even the windiest of consultants is that plans without straightforward goals or objectives, and for which progress cannot be quantified over time, are the biggest joke of all. C&RB
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Summing It Up
• Club managers who thrive on, and take pride in, their ability to manage crises and put out fires conveniently ignore that this really reflects their inability to plan.
• Consultant-speak about effective planning techniques can be off putting, but much of it really boils down to following common-sense practices.
• Just as time management experts recommend prioritizing daily tasks and pursuing their completion accordingly, similar rankings and guidelines can be established and followed for longer-term plans.
Time for a New Approach Time management experts have long counseled that the key to a productive day is categorizing and prioritizing the tasks that need to be done according to how “important and urgent” they are, and then attacking your work accordingly. The same approach can be adapted to make the planning process more effective, too. Here are some “ABCs” to try to follow for both daily and fa
r-off planning.
First, prioritize plans that have been proposed or appear to be needed, according to these categories:
• Type A—both vital to the future of the organization, and pressing
• Type B—either vital or pressing, but not both.
• Type C—low-priority from both standpoints. Then, schedule to execute the prioritized plans according to these guidelines within a specified period (quarterly, annually, etc.):
• Type A—be sure to complete these within the period.
• Type B—strive to complete at least one of these for every two “Type A”s.
• Type C—fit these in as time and resources allow.
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