From plans to reality

There’s something that’s been lost over the last few decades.  It probably started back when ‘strategy’ was coined in the 1960s, and quickly after that consultants in strategy popped up like weeds in a field after the rain. (Businesses were doing strategy way before it was a ‘thing’, it was just called ‘doing stuff that makes sense given who we are and where we are’.  But that’s another post.)

The thing that’s been lost is the converting of ideas, or intentions, or plans into actual work.

By actual work, I mean the assigning or agreeing of what will actually be produced.  To use terminology of Elliott Jaques, tasks are  a quantity of things of a given quality, delivered by a certain time, done for a purpose, with resources and within limits, and all within a context.

A bit of a mouthful.  We can also just say ‘what-by-when‘.

But this is the often missing element between the lofty ‘strategies’ and the people who actually produce things that in the end make customers happy.

It’s not much use saying ‘by 2018 we will better understand our customers‘ and leave it there.  At best, this fits the purpose part of the Jaques definition.  For work to happen, people need to know the actual task, the actual deliverable, the thing that needs to be produced that will lead to the result we need.

We can say ‘but I pay them to figure that out’ if we want.  But you don’t.  People are paid to deliver results, which in turn requires understanding of what will produced to achieve that result.

‘What-by-when’ can be days away. Or it can be years away (land someone one the moon and bring them back safely by the end of the decade’).

So the question for you is whether your people are clear on their what-by-whens.  Try writing them down….literally get on the same page.

Don’t do this, and you are managing by hoping.  Do this, and your people will deliver.

It’s how you make your plans reality.