Ducks In A Row: Planning For A Successful 2010
by Miki Saxon
It’s November, a time when the end of the year is suddenly much closer than you thought.
During the next two months people will be doing their best to tidy up all the loose ends, both business and personal, before the year ends.
Whether you do it yourself or have and executive team and thousands of employees, you can’t afford to focus only on wrapping up 2009; you need to plan for 2010.
The approach we use was drummed into my head since 1979 by Al Negrin, RampUp’s angel and chairman.
It’s called PBO (plans, budgets and objectives), but is very different from the old MBO (management by objective).
The critical act in PBO is to tie the plan to the objectives and to be sure that the budget, including headcount and other resources is adequate to support them.
For example, to achieve the objectives set for the marketing department requires increasing headcount by 5 people, but the budget for marketing only covers the cost of 3, so it becomes impossible for the manager to achieve the objectives.
Doing this actively sets your people up to fail—not the smartest approach for any manager.
And don’t sit quietly by if you receive an impossible set of objectives in the false hope that you can somehow protect yourself and your team.
In tight economies objectives often become more like wish lists; this is especially true after layoffs.
If your budgeting process is reality-based then there is no way to cut X% of a department’s headcount without reevaluating that department’s objectives as well as the company’s—it’s all connected.
Click these links to read a detailed explanation of PBO and how-to do it, and then tweak it to fit your own needs. If you need some help feel free to call me at 866.265.7267 or email miki@rapupsolutions.com, subject line about PBO (in case of filters).
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Image credit: ZedBee|Zoë Power on flickr
