Have you already planned it?- E05

Do you plan or act spontaneously? Are you usually persistent and keep on track or do you change your mind pretty easily? Are you fixed to a plan and do your best or maybe you don’t even have one?

Welcome to my next episode.

Listen to “05 – Have you already planned it?” on Spreaker.

Transcription

This is the podcast 8 Minutes to Success. I’m Kinga Panufnik and I invite you to spend the next 8 minutes with me.

On my way to success I’ve learnt a lot from others. That is why I’ d like to share my personal experience with you.

Welcome.

When I was working in business as a financial director responsible for financing projects, one day I had a meeting with a lady who was in charge of a bank branch. I went to her office with an investment appraisal, so financial documents and business plan, to apply for a loan. At that time the economy was doing very well, many companies were investing and developing.

Before we started talking about the main point, we made a little small talk. The things this woman said to me will stay forever in my mind. I graduated in economics at high school and at University, I have an MBA and have completed many prestigious training courses, but that meeting was the best lesson about planning I have ever had.

She said: Miss Kinga. The market is going crazy! I am doing what I can, not to give any more loans to companies. Last year in my bank I achieved the best performance among all the branches in Poland. My results were the best, I exceeded the plan for the previous year by so much and because of that my bosses gave me a much bigger target for this year. When I received this new target I thought I could never achieve it. However, because of the booming economy I’ve exceeded it already. But there are 5 months left to the end of the year. I’m doing what I can, not to sign any more loan contracts, so as not to get an even larger target for next year.

As you can imagine I decided not to submit my application. It was not worth any effort from either side. So I got a loan in different bank.

I wondered what was the company’s target? Was it to get as much as they could at that time or was it just to reach the number on the excel sheet, no matter what the situation on the market was. I noticed that a split had appeared between the company’s goal and the employee’s goal and this had been created by the plan.

Let’s go back to the story… The next year there was a downturn in the economy and the companies has reduced their investments, as to bring down their debts. It was impossible to deliver even half of the previous plan.

I have thought about this conversation many times. Should a manager engage with the market to gain the maximum advantage for the company, no matter what the plan is or should they play a game with their boss simply to achieve the number on the paper?

For me, the market together with companies, individuals, potential clients who have their needs (no matter if conscious or unconscious) – is our chance, a window of opportunity. I recommend to look at it like this.

What is a plan though? For me a plan is an idea how to use these opportunities. It links the market situation with the target.

What does the target mean for me? It’s my own decision how I want to deal with outside opportunities taking into consideration my internal limits, values and so on.

When the plan becomes the target it’s causes confusion. And managers can pull in one direction and employees in another.

And a challenge for you for this week.

Take one thing. It can be your work, it can be your group of friends, it can be your family, neighbors.

This is your market. Look at it carefully, what is it like? What do they need?

The next thing, decide what are you going to do with it, do you want to give them something, or maybe get something from them? This is your target.

So let’s move to making a plan.

How are you going to adjust your target to match the market taking into consideration your beliefs, values, limitations. The market is always changing. So what about your values? Your limits? Are they going to change too? If the market is not stable anyhow, how should our plan be made? Stable? Fixed? Flexible? And if you are working with a team how are you going to implement it? I’ll leave you with this bunch of questions for some time. I hope this can inspire you to come up with great ideas.

That’s all for today. See you next time.

This was 8 Minutes to Success. If I’ve left you wanting more that’s great. It’s much healthier to stay a little hungry rather than eat too much and feel sick. I hope you will listen to my next episode. To avoid missing any I recommend that you sign up for the newsletter on my website www.8minutestosuccess.com and the next episode will be sent to your email straight from the production line. Don’t be afraid I won’t be bringing this out every day. Don’t forget to subscribe. Would also be nice to get some comments from you and if you feel it’s worthy you can share it with your friends.

Take care. Bye, bye.