be linked to the training and skills of those responsible for creating and leading those management teams.
Seldom do senior managers have the necessary sophisticated group skills to create a total team of bold thinkers. The fine art of group dynamics is not taught as a part of our formal education. The average manager in corporate America cannot even run an effective meeting, the simplest demonstration of group dynamics skill. Why should we expect managers to be able to orchestrate, with virtuoso ability, the complex and intricate processes of humans interacting in business groups? Without group skills, team mentality at many organizations actually becomes a vehicle to encourage lackluster performance.
The antidote for timidity in planning is to think big and out- side of the box. Consider the following planning techniques:
■ Eliminate the use of “industry averages.” You should know what they are but not allow them to become the basis for performance or goal setting. To use them as benchmarks for higher performance is fine. Just don’t let them become de facto ceilings.
■ Plan as a team. With effective team management you can create the synergy necessary to overcome the pitfalls of committees and other dysfunctional groups. By using team planning, you can tap into a wealth of intellectual capital that may be otherwise missed.
Arrogant Companies: Three Deadly Excuses for
A company that doesn’t plan can operate for a period of time, exist- ing day to day or year to year, but sooner or later the story plays out.
Arrogant leaders of arrogant companies often use three com- mon themes or reasons to skip writing a business plan. These dead- ly avoidance behaviors are made even more potent when found in combinations:
1. When life is good customers line up and profits roll in with no end in sight. “Why should we do strategic planning?” a successful management team asks. The more profitable a company, the more arrogant it becomes. Managers begin to believe their own press clippings, which leads to a belief of infallibility. Arrogant companies are so busy making money they get lulled into a false sense of security. They don’t believe they need to do strategic planning.
Ironically, the best time to plan is when you are making lots of money and having a string of successes. Then you can afford the luxury of planning. When you are failing is the worst time to plan. That’s when you can least afford it.
Either way, the need for planning doesn’t disappear.
2. We’re good. Arrogant companies have a distorted view of themselves as successful management teams. They falsely believe their successes are because of their astute perfor- mance. They would be devastated to learn that their suc- cesses may be a matter of circumstance, not brilliant man- agement. If a company is successful, doesn’t that mean management is doing the right things? Maybe that’s true but maybe not. Does it indicate a well-trained, disciplined management team with the skills needed for sustained growth? Maybe it does and maybe it doesn’t.
3. Planning is a waste of time when we could be making money.
Arrogant companies see planning as missed opportunities for generating more dollars by doing more of the same as they are doing now. This track soon runs out. Planning is
not a waste of time. It is about using your time to prepare for new opportunities. Doesn’t it make more sense to be in control of your company’s future than to leave it to fate?
Wouldn’t it be wise to think through what you want to accomplish long term rather than live from day to day?
Arrogant companies are easy to spot from my vantage point as a consultant. Most frequently these are family-held businesses, entrepreneurial ventures, or old-line staid corporations. Don’t try to tell such companies that they need to do planning. You have to wait until they start to hurt. They must hit the flat spot on the growth line before you can get their attention.
One such case comes to mind. I was asked to work as a sub- contractor for a large consulting company that had a growing strategic consulting business unit. The weeks of telephone discus- sions went well. The actual meeting went in the other direction.
The reception I received at their corporate headquarters was the most insulting of my consulting career. The interviewing team was the most arrogant, self-centered group of professional consultants I had ever encountered. Their smugness was evident in every theme of our conversation. The final comment that sealed the meeting’s fate was this: “You don’t understand. You are just a little player. If you expect to work for us you’ll have to give up some of your autonomy.”
That attitude was indicative of a group that failed and was dis- banded within six months. They had no business plan. I suspect there was a connection.
The following techniques for dealing with an arrogant attitude are simple but radical:
■ Wait until they fail to get attention. Unfortunately, this is not a healthy course of action, but sometimes it is the only way.
■ Focus on the idea of creating greater success than the present.
This often hooks high-performing organizations that
think they are creating the optimum results. Ask two ques- tions of the management of this type company:
1. How much more money could you have made if you had been better organized?
2. How much money did you leave on the table by the way you now operate?
These are killer questions that usually lead an arrogant company to planning.