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The 12 Week Year — Chapter-04: Throw Out the Annual Plan
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Chapter 4 Throw Out the Annual Plan Once you have a clear vision of where you want to go, you will need a plan to get there. Imagine yourself driving across country on a family vacation without a map. You will probably agree that this is not a good idea! “A vision without a plan is a pipe dream.” Having a plan to achieve your vision and your professional goals is even more essential than having a map to navigate a cross-country trek. Yet the sad truth is that most individuals spend more time planning a trip than they do planning their business. Working from a plan has three distinct benefits:
- It reduces mistakes.
- It saves time.
- It provides focus. Planning allows you to think through in advance the best approach to achieving your goals. You make your mistakes on paper, which reduces miscues during implementation. In addition, studies have shown that planning saves significant time and resources. This may seem paradoxical. In fact, many people feel that if they are not constantly doing, they are not productive. The reality is that planning is some of the most productive time you can have. Finally, planning—like a good road map—keeps you focused and on purpose. This is vital, as there are all kinds of day-to-day distractions to pull you off course. Your plan continually brings you back to the strategically important items.
12 Week Planning Like no other approach that we are aware of, 12 week planning delivers these benefits and then some over traditional annual planning. We’re not talking about quarterly planning—remember, that’s part of the outdated annualized-thinking model. With 12 week planning, every 12 weeks stands alone; every 12 weeks is a new year and a fresh opportunity to be great. Twelve week planning also offers three additional and distinct differences from annual planning. The first thing that is different with 12 week planning is that it is more predictable than 12 month planning. The farther you plan into the future, the less predictability you have. With long-term plans, assumptions are stacked upon earlier assumptions, which are stacked upon even earlier assumptions. If you’re that good at predicting the future, call me; I’d love to talk to you about your stock picks! The reality is that it is very difficult, if not impossible, to determine what your daily actions should be 11 or 12 months into the future. That is why annual plans are generally objective-based. With a 12 week plan, predictability is much greater. You can define, with a high degree of certainty, what actions you need to implement each week over the next 12 weeks. Twelve week plans are both numbers- and activity- based. They create a strong connection between the actions you take today and the results you want to achieve. The second difference with 12 week planning is that it is more focused. Most annual plans have too many objectives, which is one of the primary reasons execution fails. The reason most plans contain so much is because you’re planning for 12 months, laying out all the things you want to achieve over the next 365 days. It’s no wonder you become disillusioned and frustrated. You end up spread too thin and diffused—not a recipe for greatness. There will always be more opportunities than you can effectively pursue. With the 12 Week Year, the approach is to be great at a few things instead of mediocre at many things. In 12 week planning, you identify the top one to three things that will have the greatest impact, and pursue those with intensity. The 12 week plan focuses on a few key areas and creates the energy and urgency to act.
The third thing that is different with 12 week plans is the structure. In our experience, most plans are written with the unspoken goal of just developing a good plan. Most often these plans are then placed in a nice binder and rarely get implemented. Setting Goals The whole point of planning should be to help you identify and implement the critical few actions that you need to take to reach your goal. If planning didn’t help you execute better, there would be no reason to plan. However, the sad fact is that most plans are not written with implementation in mind. The way the plan is structured and how it is written impacts your ability to effectively execute. Effective planning strikes a working balance between too much complexity and too little detail. Your plan should start by identifying your overall goal(s) for the 12 weeks. The goal defines success for the 12 Week Year. It represents a great 12 weeks, and also represents intentional progress toward your longer-term vision. “If you don’t know where you are going, you’ll end up someplace else.” —Yogi Berra Once you have established your 12 week goals, tactics will then need to be determined. The easiest way to do this is to break your 12 week goal down to its individual parts. For example, if your 12 week goal is to earn $10,000 and lose 10 pounds, you should write tactics for your income goal and your weight loss goal separately. Tactics are the daily to-do’s that drive the attainment of your goals. Tactics must be specific, actionable, and include due dates and assigned responsibilities. We’ll have more to say on how to write effective tactics a little later in the application section. The 12 week plan is structured so that if the tactics are completed on a timely basis the goals are achieved. Remember, in order to keep from losing your way with a 12 week focus, you will need to align your 12 week plan to your longer-term vision.
A 12 week plan is powerful. It allows you to focus on what’s important now. Remember that the 12 week plan is not part of an annual plan; that’s old annualized thinking. Twelve weeks is long enough to get things done, and yet is short enough to create and maintain a sense of urgency. For top performers, 12 week plans provide a step-by-step road map that eliminates diffusion and delays, and demands immediate action. For actual examples of 12 week plans join the 12 Week Year community at www.12weekyear.com/gettingstarted. It’s free!