Summer is (still) the Best Time to Prepare for Planning

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For most organizations, summer is the best time to prepare for Strategic Planning.  However, given everything that has transpired in recent years as well as everything that is unfolding, you might be wondering if that is still the case.  Here are two good reasons, one internal to your organization, one more externally focused, that you should prepare now for great planning in the fall.

1. Organizational Timing: Most organizations have fiscal years that end in December or June, and it is very helpful if strategic planning is timed to occur in step with the fiscal year. That way, the funds needed to implement tactics over the lifespan of the Plan can be built into yearly budgets. That makes the fall through early winter the ideal time for work sessions focused on developing a new multi-year plan or preparing an annual update.  And backing up a little further, that means summer is a great time to accomplish the work that will make those sessions as productive as possible.  That includes the research, data gathering, and information analysis comprising the industry, market, and organizational assessments.

2. Adjusting for New Developments: But what about when emerging innovations or major issues such as AI, Health Equity, and Work Force Shortages impact your organization and the communities you serve? The disruption and need to reprioritize experienced by most organizations with Covid19 are still fresh in everyone’s mind.  And new developments like these are often the impetus for changing customer needs and expectations, as well as a sudden flourish of innovation as many organizations rush to respond to those changing customer needs and prepare for a “new normal”.  From that perspective, this is an important time to be in contact with your customers and stakeholders, and to learn what you can about the innovation occurring both within and beyond your industry.

Right Sizing the Effort: The good news is that these summer preparations can be customized to fit with your organization’s unique Strategic Planning needs.  Here are three general scenarios and how you can use these summer months most effectively:

1. New Plan: If you have not prepared a Strategic Plan before, or a new one is long overdue, preparing for the actual planning work sessions is critically important. The depth and scope of the three assessments mentioned earlier strongly relates to the quality and insight of the desired future state...the vision or goals...at the heart of your new Plan. Organizations in this scenario may benefit the most from working with a consultant this summer, one who can help you prepare an affordable research plan and to whom you can outsource much of the assessment work, especially if your resources are already stretched thin.

2. Scheduled Update: If this is an “update” year for a recently developed Strategic Plan, and that update is scheduled for this fall or winter, now is a great time to refresh your assessments and stay on course for that update. Postponing the update at a time when so many things are in flux may mean you fall behind important shifts in your market and industry. An outside consultant can help you plan where to target efforts to refresh your assessments and get the most out of limited resources and time.

3. Business as Usual? If you do not need a new Strategic Plan and there is no “update” looming in the next 6 – 9 months, you may have the least amount to do this summer of any of these three scenarios. However, the number and magnitude of recent events may still warrant a limited and targeted amount of research including customer needs feedback, strategy affirmation / adjustment input from stakeholders, and identification of emerging new / best practices relevant to your current strategies. Pressed for time?  Outsourcing this limited, but important, research may be the answer.

For most organizations, the summer months are the best time to prepare for great Strategic Planning, and this year is no exception.  And another emerging trend, the increasing comfort level of people working remotely, can make this work easier and more affordable than ever.

I hope you have a chance to really enjoy these summer months, safely of course.  If I can be of any help with your planning needs, contact me at your earliest convenience.

Jeff

What I learned (again) at 151 MPH

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Five years ago this month, I had a chance to do something I had always wanted to do, but never thought I would.  The previous Christmas, my family surprised me with a paid pass to the NASCAR Racing Experience: a chance to drive a real race car on one of the championship series tracks.  Having always been a car racing fan, they knew this would be a very special gift.  So, in May 2019, I headed to Michigan International Speedway (MIS) to live out that dream.  But what I, and my family, didn’t know is that this experience would be very memorable in more ways than one.

Confidence is Good, Right?  Like almost everyone, I suppose, I thought of myself as a pretty good driver.  I’ve seen many races of different types of cars over the years on TV and was fortunate to see some in person, from dirt track races to premier events including the Daytona 500 and the Detroit Grand Prix.  But on top of that, I’ve also studied cars and car racing throughout my life, accumulating knowledge of things like “push” (understeer), downforce, and flattening a curve, so I thought all of this might make me a better than average first timer in a real race car.

A Whole New Ball Game  However, none of this armchair knowledge could have prepared for me for the actual experience of guiding a 700 horsepower race car around 18° banked turns at 150 mph.  Even in the beginner package, you’re driving a fully equipped race-ready NASCAR on a championship series course.  It’s very different than driving your own car to work or the grocery store, and you’ve got about three to four laps to try to adjust.  I quickly found myself making many adjustments.  For example, my sense of timing of when to start turning the wheel as the next curve approached was very “late” at these speeds, at least for the first lap or two.  Suddenly, I felt very humble.

It may sound like this all goes by quickly, and I guess it does.  But like many things that get your adrenalin flowing, time also seems to slow down, making the memories of those few laps very clear.  And with time to reflect over the next few weeks, I started realizing how much I had relied on things already familiar to me.  Three important attributes of high-performance teams were very evident that day, attributes that I learned years earlier in classrooms and online learning courtesy of the Talent Development Team at Trinity Health.  Here’s what I learned again at 151 MPH:

Safety First  This may be surprising when talking about something like car racing, which on the surface seems risky and dangerous.  But from the moment I arrived, everyone I met and everything I did before and during the driving, conveyed a focus on safety...and in a reassuring and educational way, not in a way that made me nervous.  This intense safety focus is also very evident in the quality of equipment, clarity of the mandatory class you attend before getting into the car, and ongoing guidance from the staff. This resonated with me on so many levels of my experience with Trinity Health, as an employee and as a consultant seeing the many ways it is woven into curriculum, process, and culture, but also as a patient in the way care team members interact with me.

Customer Focus  Every staff member I interacted with at the NASCAR Racing Experience struck the perfect balance of serious tone and fun, making the whole experience reassuring and enjoyable.  I don’t think they could have achieved this without first learning what customers would want (and even be delighted with) in this kind of experience, and then always trying to find ways to make it better.  I have seen that same customer (patient) focus over the years at Trinity Health, in their long-standing commitment to seeing the “whole patient” (mind, body, and spirit), and the emphasis on continuous quality and process improvement, all things I learned about as a Talent Development Team member.

Trust  When you are doing something you’ve never done before, something where you have no real comparable experience to lean on, is there anything more valuable than a mentor or guide?  As I took those first laps at MIS, I immediately relied on my “spotter”.  Each driver is assigned to one, and from his viewpoint above the grand stands through radio communication wired into your helmet, my spotter calmly talked me though every shift and turn, let me know if there were any other cars near me, and coached me on how I could improve on the next lap.  With positive reinforcement and helpful guidance, he immediately earned my trust.  I learned many team building skills working with the Trinity Health Talent Development Team over the years, and trust…how to earn it, build it, and give it…has been one of the most enduring of those lessons.

Then and Now  It’s been five years now, but the memories of that experience – the sights, sounds, and exhilaration - are still very clear to me.  And some important lessons, first learned years before in a totally different setting, are clear to me as well.  And today, I think I understand them at a deeper level, and can see more opportunities where they could be applied, than I did before.  I guess that’s what “relearning” can do for you.

Thank You!   Thank you to my family for a once in lifetime experience and the treasured memories that I can add to so many others.  To the people of the NASCAR Racing Experience, thank you for the chance to live out a dream, if only for a few laps, and one of the best customer service experiences I’ve ever had.  And to D'Anne Carpenter, Jill Kotwicki, Renee Therrien, and Geralyn Quick, and the whole team past and present, at Trinity Health Talent Development, thank you for teaching me (the first time) some of the fundamentals of high-performance teams.