“The nice thing about not planning is that failure comes as a complete and utter surprise and is not preceded by long periods of worry, anguish and self-doubt.” A great quote from General James Short who led a workshop “Walking the Talk – Delivering Improved Profitability” with the Bristol Entrepreneurs Board last week.
His thesis, that there are only two options:
- Option 1 THE BUSINESS MIRACLE – Do today what you did yesterday and expect a different result tomorrow!
- Option 2 MANAGE THE FUTURE – Set the vision, define your objectives, make a plan, announce your actions, review the process.
And regarding the Plan… ” A good plan today is better than a perfect plan tomorrow!”
The Kernel of a good plan?
- Absolute CLARITY on what you have to do …
- FOCUS on the essentials of implementation …
- Measure DELIVERABLES [GROWTH, PROFIT] …
The Bristol Entrepreneurs Board meets on the 1st Tuesday each month for 1/2 day. About half of the meetings involve visiting world-class business experts leading interactive workshops, the other meetings involve members working as a peer group [“The Board You Could Never Afford”] to help each other meet challenges, set goals , learn with and from each other, under the facilitation of the group chairman.
Members are Owners, MD’s or CEO’s of successful local businesses employing from 10’s to 100’s of staff. As member Paul Eaton puts it “It helps me to stand back from the business, to prioritise the issues in the business and spend some quality time working on the business rather than in it”.
To get a podcast of James Shorts session or for more information about the Bristol EB group, contact Jon Penn at jon.penn@chiefexecutive.com or on 07980 486512.
chiefexecblog 