Are You and Your Team on the Same Page?

It’s probably been a couple months since you updated the annual business plan, reviewed the annual budgets, and set goals for the year. You created a nice plan, probably felt a sense of accomplishment, but now what? How often do you reference it? Maybe more importantly, has the team you’re relying on to help even seen it? Most repairers have at least one production meeting per day to get everyone on the same page; doesn’t it make sense to put a similar discipline in place when it comes to the operation of the overall business?

 A few years ago I joined a CEO mentoring group for young technology companies; it was expensive, but most good things are. A mandate to participants was implementation of Verne Harnish’s  One-Page Plan. It addresses the common problem where companies struggle to communicate the broader business objectives to their people in a relatable way. It’s extremely difficult to convert long term goals into actionable tasks that can be achieved quarterly, monthly, weekly, and even daily. The One-Page Plan is a template to do just that; its part strategic plan and part communication tool.  In short, it’s a one page document that captures longer term goals, reverse engineers them into short terms activities, and assigns accountability to the people that need to perform them.

 I won’t go into the inner workings of the One Page Plan as there are abundant reference materials that will do that. If you can relate to the problem it addresses, I highly recommend evaluating its use. If you decide to implement it, be forewarned, it will require discipline and may not stick on the first attempt. My guess is that your daily production meetings took a while to catch on too … but can you imagine running your shop without them now?

In our own use we’ve modified the template to fit our specific needs, but the overriding goal is preserved. Get the entire organization going in the same direction and install a rhythm of daily, weekly, and monthly checkpoints to keep it on track.  The One-Page Plan has become a touchstone for all of us at AutoHouse. We can always do better, but with everyone moving in the same direction, I’m confident we will.