As I mentioned earlier, the beginning of the year is normally for many people, a time for planning, goal setting, setting targets, budgeting and others for the rest of the year. Most people in any management position will be required to do so and nowadays, in many organizations, even entry level staff, are required to sit down and write their own goals in relation to their work.
Henry Ford said the now famous quote, and I’m sure you’ve read about it that “Thinking is one of the most difficult things to do that is why so few engage in itâ€. I’m quite sure you’ve read failing to plan is planning to fail. I would like to add that implementation is just as important.
How does all this tie in with your personal money. If you don’t make plans for it, it is not going to happen. If you want financial freedom, same thing you have to plan for it. Many people make and implement plans for their work place by fail to do so for their personal lives and I think this is an area everyone needs to look into.
Over the years of planning, I’ve made yearly plans, 3 years plans and even 5 years plans for myself. Most of it is obviously work related. I also realized, for myself and the people I work with, many a times after much time spent on planning, the implementation falters. There is not follow through or the follow through. I call this the fizzy drink principle. Basically, the plans fizzle out!
The reasons are many but I’d guess that it boils down to immediate getting into the way of the important. Yeah, it is good, but I have to tackle what is on the plate. How does all these relate back to money. Well, the reason we make plans, we as in all of us, not just the organization I work with make plans in the first place is, we believe we need to make changes to make this better, right. Either we make more money for the same amount of effort or time that is put in, or less effort and time or the same amount of money. Bottom line, we want things better.
I believe that we as individuals owe it to ourselves and our families to draw out even better plans than what we do at the company since it is our own lives and we only live our lives once. Life, after all, is not a rehearsal.
This time around, though the plans are good, we would focus more on the implementation. Don’t get me wrong, it is not that our team did not grow. In most years, we had double digit growth. So why am I writing this. Well, if we had tighten our ship, perhaps we could have gotten 20%, 30% or 50% growth. We would not know till we get this right.
Well, some might disagree and say if the plans are not carried out well, why plan in the first place? I mean, there is logic to that. If we don’t do what we wrote down and said we’ll do, why waste time. Let just all hang loose and go with the flow. I’m sure there are those cowboys who shoot first and talk later type. We have those in our team too. At some point, I have to say, I was ready to join the latter.
Some how I didn’t. I mean huge multi million corporations spend billions of dollars to not only to plan and train their people to plan; they get management consultant and whatever else to ensure they stay on top of the game. Planning in itself is a whole industry that was spawned as the need to drive organizations.
So, what did I learn over the years? Well, planning itself is a skill just like any other skill like writing, selling, managing and speaking. It gets better the more you do it. Over time, the plans you make and the results will start to converge. Then you know you are getting there. Then next challenge then, is to repeat that the next year and the year after. If you can repeat your plans and results year in and year out, then you know your planning skills are sharp. Otherwise, it could just be luck.
This year, besides work, I’ll be more involved in a non profit organization. Time will be a premium, so I’ll need to sit down, think and do up my strategic plan for that area of my life as well. Back to the drawing board.
Chau.
p.s A good book I’ve found useful for all that want’s to have better thinking is John C. Maxwell’s Thinking for a Change: 11 Ways Highly Successful People Approach Life and Work
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