Leaders plan and prepare for success

Today I want to talk about planning and preparation. I was travelling again and visited an old work friend who over dinner expressed a high level of frustration as he was preparing for a big project and most of his requirements to start his task hadn't been met. He spoke with his team leader, who didn't seem to understand that my friend couldn't start his portion of the work, until the other teams completed their efforts.

Do you take the time to truly understand what your team members need? Do you understand what is involved in their preparation?

What had happen to my friend was he was to give a technical presentation on a piece of complicated software. The software engineers were having issues and finished their portion of the project at midnight the night before my friend was to present. Surprisingly he had to go in blind and some aspects didn't work. The end result the customer was not happy, they hadn't got the outcome they were looking for. My friend was upset as it looked like he didn't know his subject as he had trouble with all the customised aspects of the presentation. I wonder what the outcome would have been if the project had finished on time and my friend had the couple of days preparation he had requested. My friend confronted his team leader to express why there were so many issues, his reply, well they finished before your presentation so what was the trouble, my friend exploded when was he to be briefed on these changes, when was he to practice the demonstrations. His boss simply shrugged and said I can't tell the engineers what to do.

When you set up your plan do you allow for slippage, do you have a stop/go plan in place depending on the progress of the work leading up to each event. Often its better to cancel early and get the whole thing right rather than fly be the seat of your pants and then look less than average because you team has to cuff their part of the operation. If you talk to the professional project managers they will all tell you it is important to build in some periods of no new work to allow all the prerequisite work to be completed and documented.

As leaders it's important the we are meticulous plan and prepare for our team's work. nothing will damage our credibility faster than asking your team to do their work when they don't have all the things they need.

Keeping your team in the loop

Good leaders keep their teams in the loop

Do you brief your team? Do you talk with them on a regular basis so they know what's going on. Do they know how you are feeling about the team performance? Part of being a great leader is taking the time to talk with your team and explain the things that need some action, the things that are producing great results and especially to share any victories the team has achieved. By taking this time the team will feel more cohesive and in-tune with what you have to say about your vision and your strategic plans.

Easy said than done, do you have a method for moving from start through all the aspects you want to cover and concluding on a high note. Her is a simple strategy you can adopt to suit the situation.

Start with today's current situation, where are we in the big picture, what's recently happened since the last brief. Next consider any big win's be sure to share these with the whole team and if you wish to single people out for outstanding work be sure you mention all the players. From here consider the team progress on the run-rate activities, are we behind, on or ahead of plan.

Next move onto what is the objective for the next period, be sure to touch all departments and their various groups, single out any special deals we are working on, so the team can feel they are including in maintaining the current position and they are assisting the next phase or deal.

Form here we need to move onto execution, how are we going to deliver our promise to the team, how are we looking to make improvements that could see our group move to a point of excellence.

Lastly are their any routine admin or logistics that need to be highlighted to the team.

An old coach of mine always said to me a good briefing starts on a high note, address one or two points that need correcting and ends on a high note, if you structure your brief this way your team members will feel motivated to continue working well and producing great results for the team.