When the plan fails…

The New Year is when we like to think about the future. We kick back, share ideas over BBQs, strategise and set business goals. But how can we ensure our plans stay on track?

Sometimes our plans get shot up during the first engagement. Adverse weather, supplier delays, staff mistakes, or any one of hundreds of other things can go wrong, which can threaten the very existence of your business.

It’s not unusual for small businesses to experience sudden disruption. It can be scary, with huge financial implications.

But it need not be the end of the road. When your business plans get derailed, you can take action.

Acknowledge the frustration

Admit your irritation. You need to face your annoyance and anger before diving in to affect change. If you act before surmounting these feelings, you are likely to over-react and maybe even augment the problem. Deal with your frustration, so you don’t say or do something you will regret – particularly if the frustration is directed at a staff member. 

Define the mountain

Get a realistic measure of the true size of the ‘mountain’. It’s likely you’ll need to make changes, but first make a shortlist of the things that have gone wrong and what impact they had, thereby ensuring your intervention will be based on reality. Under pressure, it’s easy to make a mountain out of a molehill.

This list should reflect your current situation and hopefully things won’t get any worse. However, plan as if they could, then add those impacts to your list as worst-case scenarios. Writing it all down not only helps you get a better idea of what is actually wrong (the reality), it also helps you see the upper limit of the damage. Once the worst is defined (the mountain), it can’t get any bigger.

Change your viewpoint

Female Beewolves are villainous wasps that sting honeybees with paralyzing venom, then carry them back to their larvae as food. Before leaving on raids, a female Beewolf notes her home-tunnel’s position by proximity to local markers and uses them as reference points to make her return.

If those markers are moved while she is out raiding (as Dr Nicolaas Tinbergen did when studying them), her return plans are frustrated and she ends up at the wrong spot. Rather than giving up, or returning repeatedly to the wrong place, she flies to a higher altitude to locate reference markers that are further away. Then she relocates the position of the tunnel entrance and flies directly to it using this revised plan.

Here’s the lesson:

Revised planning is best done at higher altitude. Before you react, step up and look at the bigger picture. Get a clear picture of the new situation in relation to your long-term plan and hold onto this as you move into ‘fix-it’ mode.

Major or minor?

Changing your perspective will help you determine if it really is a major event in the greater scheme of things. It will give you a better sense of proportion and protect you from over-reaction should it just appear to be a disaster, when it’s not actually that bad.

Ask yourself some questions, such as:

• Do I need to make drastic or just temporary changes?
• Is this event threatening to the overall direction of my plan, or just to the timing or the means?
• Do I need to change personnel immediately (eg, replace a foreman), or persevere?

Before leaping in to fix the problem, do a quick assessment of the critical nature of each element and determine whether they require major or minor intervention.

Concurrent corrections

Disruptions are also a good time to reflect on whether they might be indicative of a major failing which could be repeated, such as mistakes in your pricing method, design or scheduling. 

While you need to take responsible action immediately and fix what needs fixing, it’s important that you don’t stop once you have ‘fixed it’. Should you move on without making definite plans for correcting any deeper issues that have arisen, you may set yourself up for similar issues in the future.

In summary

There are times in the year (eg New Year’s Day, beginning of a financial year) when it’s traditional to make plans and dream about what could be. But eventually those plans will be challenged. Don’t be surprised or put off. Few business plans ever go as intended, but success is less about getting the plan right as it is about handling the disruptions that cause them to go wrong.

About the successful builder

Graeme Owen, based in Auckland, is a builders’ business coach. Since 2006, he has helped builders get off the tools, make decent money, and free up time for family, fishing,
and enjoying sports. Get his free ebook: 3 Reasons Builders Lose Money and How to Fix Them for High Profits at TheSuccessfulBuilder.