October is International Strategic Planning Month

This month the planet is celebrating International Strategic Planning Month. Why not join in the celebration?

What does your own plan look like? Tattered around the edges? Way off projected revenue and profit? Forgotten in some dusty corner? Not updated since February?

Or maybe you're one of those successful people who has a plan and keeps it up-to-date. You use the plan to guide your work, adjust it as necessary, and use it as a living document. If so, you celebrate ISP every month.

I was on a TV interview show recently with the CEO of a Fortune 500 company. He emphasized the need for executing the plan and adjusting the plan based on conditions on the ground. Now this is an important and even critical part of planning that too many people forget about.

Those of us who do create a strategic plan every year are often optimistic about what we can accomplish. We do the best job we can to analyze the environment in which we will be operating but none of us has a crystal ball...Stuff happens.

Unfortunately, too many folks drop the plan and start reacting to those unexpected events -- usually negative events -- and then we are into a downward spiral of firefighting.

When this year started, the ink on my plan was barely dry when the economic melt down hit me and my business hard. It was a scary couple of months -- disaster loomed and businesses were folding right and left. I was just as scared and worried as anyone else.

What I did was go back to the drawing board. I rewrote my plan, set new goals, devised new strategies, and set out on a new execution path. Everything I tried didn't work but some things did. As my friend the CEO said, "you can have the most elegant strategy, but when you hit the beach, it's execution that counts." Usually I'm not a big fan of war analogies in business but this is one of the times when the metaphor fit...and worked. I had to be more nimble, more creative, and more survival oriented than at any time in my business life.

The payoff? It's October and I'm still in business celebrating International Strategic Planning month. My plan? I just finished a new update that will take me through the second quarter of 2010. I may revise it a gain in 3 months -- the plan is only as good as the execution.

What about you? Have you made your plan for 2010? Now's a good time. Remember the old chestnut that's still floating around because it's true -- Fail to Plan -- Plan to Fail!

Want to know more about the Do's and Don'ts of Strategic Planning? Download it for free today. http://tinyurl.com/yfp6zfo

(c) Rebecca Staton-Reinstein and Advantage Leadership, Inc.

Plan is a 4-letter word!

"Listen, Rebecca, nobody has time for this planning stuff in this economy. They just need to survive. Planning's for when things calm down."

That was the 'conventional wisdom' from a chum of mine recently. Well, I beg to differ -- I'm not being self serving -- so here's the 'evidence.'

The September 25 - October 1 edition of the South Florida Business Journal reported in two separate articles on local banks that are doing well because of their planning. We could all take a lesson from them.

Coral Gables, Florida is the home of Gibraltar Private Bank and Trust. Several years ago the bank, founded by Steve Hayworth in 1994, was acquired by Boston Private Financial Holdings. It has just been repurchased by Hayworth and a group of investors.

Hayworth said he moved to repurchase the bank because he felt it was in the best interests of his clients. The bank will stick to its business model.

"In this environment, I see an opportunity for an integrated private bank and wealth management," Hayworth said. "We are very focused on private banking and wealth advisory services for professionals and affluent families."

"The bank will stick to its business model." This is one of the keys to Gibraltar's success for many years, first as it prepared itself for acquisition, then as it prospered under the Boston company's auspices, and now as it strikes out on its own again. Steve Hayworth and Gibraltar were featured as a case study on the power of strategic planning and leadership in Conventional Wisdom: How Today's Leaders Plan, Perform, and Progress Like the Founding Fathers. They attributed their phenomenal growth and doubling their assets in four years to the robust strategic plan they put together and FOLLOWED. In fact, they coined a telling phrase, "The Plan is the Boss." When other banks were faltering, going under, or just flailing about in an economic downturn, Gibraltar and Hayworth stuck with their plan and forged ahead.

In the same issue of SFBJ an unrelated story featured the Florida Shores -- Southeast Bank, founded by Steven Hickman in 2006 in Pompano Beach, Florida. Obviously this wasn't a great time to start a new bank and the bank and Hickman took a lot of flack for their slow initial growth. According to the Business Journal

Hickman said he wanted a manageable rate of growth that stuck to the bank's business plan. Because of that, Florida Shores has a relatively clean balance sheet.

"A lot of the banks that grew faster are paying the price now," he said. "We have good capital and plenty of money to lend."

"Manageable rate of growth that stuck to the bank's business plan." There's that pesky planning again! Hickman, in an email, was quick to give credit to his entire team for being the fastest-growing South Florida bank. But as was clear from the leadership philosophy he shared in Conventional Wisdom: How Today's Leaders Plan, Perform, and Progress Like the Founding Fathers, Hickman had been an expert and booster of strategic planning since his early days in the banking business. He knew its power in helping keep any venture on track and successful over the long haul. The proof of the power of that approach is in his balance sheet.

Planning in tough times? Is it a must for survival? Think about the framers of the U.S. Constitution, also featured in Conventional Wisdom. The United States were hardly united. Europe had cut off our credit, inflation was rampant, and foreclosures were devastating the farm-based economy. The latter led directly to Shays' Rebellion where local farmers in Massachusetts closed down the bankruptcy courts and marched on the state arsenal. Foreign powers were perched on our borders just waiting to pick off the disintegrating states like road kill. In fact, the U.S. faced the most threatening crisis in its history, rivaled only by the winter of 1776-7, the Civil War, and the Great Depression. Tough times indeed!

So what was the response to this tough time? 55 men assembled in Philadelphia in the summer of 1787 to hammer out a strategic plan for the nation. That's right...a strategic plan...The Constitution. Want to know more? Check out Conventional Wisdom. Want to get through these tough times? Make a plan Stan and Fran! Create a strategic plan with short term actions that will move you toward your long-term goals. If you flail you fail. Or as that sage, business guru Yogi Berra said, "If you don't know where you're going, any road will do."

I don't know about you, but I'm following the lead of Hayworth, Hickman, and the framers.

(c) Rebecca Staton-Reinstein and Advantage Leadership, Inc.

George Who?

You know the drill...Jay Leno stops people on the street and asks them simple questions and that's where the fun begins. Recently he stopped a nice young man and asked him to name some Founding Fathers. "Founding Fathers of what?" he asked rather belligerently. OK, maybe it was staged...but...

Only a quarter of high school students in a recent poll could identify the first president of the U.S. Few could list the 3 branches of government. Forget about any real understanding of our our system of government and how it works. The findings of the latest poll reflect many other more scientifically sound studies that show up year after year.

Thomas Jefferson sums it up best: If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be.

Whether you are a Democrat, Republican, Independent, or have some other affiliation, the lack of knowledge of our history and understanding of our government is frightening. It could foreshadow disaster.

What is to be done?

• Develop an engaging curriculum at every level of eduction from elementary school through college; involve educators, parents, students, historians, and instructional designers


• Train teachers at every level to become knowledgeable and involved; provide them with materials and support to develop lessons that capture students' interests


• Bring history to life with field trips to local historical sites and visits to local government meetings; Every student should visit Washington, D.C. at least once during his or her 12 years in school


• Focus less on standardized testing and more on involving students in recreating critical events from our history, debating the great issues, applying lessons to their own lives.

This will not be easy. Political debate will rage around the curriculum and determining the "correct" facts and their interpretation. But as the PBS series on the Civil War and the HBO series on John Adams have shown, when you present history in a compelling way, people will be involved and come away glad to have learned something about two crucial periods in our history that still have echos in the present.

When the John Adam series was first running on TV, Greg Swienton, CEO of Ryder System, would gather anyone who was interested to discuss the previous nights episode. These were lively ad hoc conversations. Imagine that in your busy work place. When was the last time you gathered to chat about history? When was the last time you talked with your kids or grandkids about history or took them to visit a historic site or city council meeting?

If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be.

(c) Rebecca Staton-Reinstein, http://www.advantageleadership.com/

The Lions Sleep...

The Lion of the Senate, Ted Kennedy, has passed from the scene and both Democrats and Republicans, allies and opponents lionize his contributions of four decades plus service. All of them seem to agree that what made him such a legislative master was his ability to find common ground. On the Senate floor he might roar and attack but behind the scenes he was ready with a joke, a helping hand, and a genuine desire to work out a solution. At his wake earlier this evening, one of the speakers talked about his lack of pettiness or personal rancor.

What struck me about all of this were the parallels with my own favorite legislator, James Madison. Jemmy like Teddy mastered the art of being an effective legislator. From his mid-twenties on, he served in a series of legislative bodies and was seldom out of office. He started in the colonial Virginia House of Burgesses and moved through the independent Assembly and into the Continental Congress. His most important contribution was helping pass religious freedom legislation and to fight Patrick Henry’s favorite cause, state funding for religious institutions.

Madison is called the Father of the Constitution with good reason. He used the skills he had honed in the rough-and-tumble legislatures of the Revolution and post-Revolutionary period to make sure we built a more perfect union. Jemmy was one of the conspirators who brought the Constitutional Convention into existence. (Patrick Henry stayed home saying he smelled a rat!) He had done extensive homework and showed up early to meet the delegates, take their measure, and begin building relationships. He had a draft of a new constitution introduced as the Virginia Plan. He spoke on every issue, forcefully and often persuasively. He worked in committees and behind the scenes, looking for common ground, striking deals, and building consensus. He socialized and told great, if off-color stories, and seemed to be everywhere doing the one-on-one of good political organizing. In other words he was a great legislator.

Once the Constitution was finished he worked with Alexander Hamilton in a white heat of creativity to author the Federalist, one of the great political documents of all time, arguing persuasively for ratification. Of course he was elected to the Virginia ratifying convention and although he was very ill, probably as a result of his four months of non-stop work in the convention followed by months of work on Federalist, he faced down Patrick Henry’s bombast and dramatic attacks on the new Constitution. He worked his legislative skills to their limits and brought in a paper thin victory.

With the formation of a new Congress, there was a groundswell of support to appoint Madison to the Senate. But now political payback was at work. Patrick Henry blocked his nomination, still smarting from his most recent defeat and never forgiving him for the defeat of state support of religion. Although Henry also attempted to gerrymander his district later, Madison was elected to the House of Representatives every time he ran.

In the new Congress, Madison was in his element and served as Washington’s right-hand man, making sure his legislative agenda was realized. Madison first drafted and then engineered the passing of the Bill of Rights. But perhaps one of his most interesting feats was passing Hamilton’s financial legislation. Here we see a skilled legislator at work. Even though Madison was skeptical of the financial and monetary policy in the bill, he agreed to support it. He worked behind the scenes to line up enough votes so it could pass (and he could save face with constituents and vote against it.)

For most of his life, he was known to be a passionate supporter of republican values and government without being ideological, petty, or back biting. He did not hold grudges and worked to find common ground. But as Washington entered his second term, Madison teamed up with his best friend Thomas Jefferson and fell into the ideological trap as they worked to destroy Hamilton and form the first political party in the modern sense, the Republican Party which morphed into the Democratic Republican party which became the Democratic Party. (Note – the modern Republican party arose in the years before the Civil War.)

Once Jemmy went down this ideological trail, his effectiveness as a legislator declined. When he entered the Executive branch as Jefferson’s Secretary of State and later as President, he was out of his area of real expertise. The master legislator disappeared and the adequate, but not distinguished, executive took his place. In retirement, the gifted Madison returned, without rancor again, reconsidering earlier positions, and looking for common ground.

Perhaps Ted Kennedy’s most enduring legacy will be as a role model for accepting ones gifts, ones true talents, and building them into a lifetime of passionate service. Jemmy could have learned a few things from Teddy…and visa versa. At their best, both men showed us what legislators should be – people who get things done by looking for ways to compromise, to work together, to be collegial, and to eschew ideological and petty rancor, payback, and meanness. Jemmy and Teddy were lions many of today’s legislators should learn from…the lions are sleeping...but hopefully others will awaken...

(C) Rebecca Staton-Reinstein

Most people are about as happy as they decide to be

What a great thought. I've carried this saying, attributed to Abraham Lincoln, around with me for 27 years. It jumped back into my mind yesterday when I read an article in USA Today discussing the latest research on happiness that came to the same conclusion.

At the same time, I was skimming though some articles in Training magazine reporting on a Deloitte study of executives and their attitudes about the economy and their companies. For the first time in a long time, there was a vast increase in those who thought things were going to turn around in the not-too-distant future. Doom and gloom were lifting. So they should be happy, right?

Buried in the report were some other findings however. The number-one focus of most of these executives -- note I did not say leaders -- was laying off more people. They were concerned about losing people once things turned around. In fact, the HR and leadership journals have been full of articles on retaining high-potential employees and grooming them for the future. So are these execs planning for how to keep these hi-pos once things loosen up? Most are not!

Studies show that Gen Xers and Millennials will jump ship as soon as new opportunities start to materialize. Wouldn't it make sense to plan for what's coming that will have a big impact on a company's ability to recover and grow again? Strategic leaders are planning. After all, they have that vision of the future and are planning how to get there. But their non-strategic counterparts are still mired in the present and the past.

Instead of planning how to take advantage of opportunities that are starting to arise, instead of actively growing the folks they'll need to be able to mobilize, instead of seizing the moment, they slashing staff, eliminating training, pushing everyone beyond their limits, and generally making themselves and everyone around them 'unhappy.'

Strategic leaders, not only think things are getting better, they're acting on their 'happiness.' They're investing in and nurturing their folks. They are planning and executing their plans to retain, engage, and develop the folks that will make their vision a reality. That's the difference between occupying a leadership title and being a leader. Strategic leaders are happy.

So I'm with Abe. Let's get happy!

Compromise -- good idea or bad idea?

Whether in the board room, the Congress, or dinner table debate, at some point someone will suggest a compromise. Then what happens? Some folks believe you should stick to your 'principles' and never give an inch. Others just want the debate to end so they'll jump at the chance. Neither extreme leads to good decisions or even good compromises. The U.S. Congress is debating health care/insurance reform at the moment and we see both types of extreme behavior on both sides of the aisle. In the end, there will be some sort of legislation passed and it will be a compromise...that's the way the system is set up. In fact, it took a major compromise to set up Congress in the first place.

The Constitutional Convention of 1787 was not that much different from today's Congress. It had a variety of opinions and special interests contending with one another. It had people who were adamant on many issues. Perhaps the most contentious debate was around representation --would it be equal numbers of representatives from each state or representation based on population. The smaller states wanted equal representation as they currently had in the Congress formed under the Articles of Confederation. They feared the power of the larger states and believed they would be gobbled up without equal voting power. The large states had been constantly frustrated by the ability of small states to stimmey legislation because representation did not rest on population. Both sides drew a line in the sand...or the dusty, musty floor of the Convention meeting room. This contintious issue threatened to derail the entire convention and people were ready to bring it to a close rather than give even an inch.

The arguments were bitter, lofty, extreme, and heart-felt. Virtually no one was neutral. Then on June 11, Roger Sherman (that stern looking gentleman above) put forward a motion. It was not accepted immediately and needed to go through more debate, but in the end, the Great Compromise, as it came to be called, would be accepted. The two houses of the new Congress would be selected differently. The upper House (Senate) would be based on equal representation for each state. The lower House (Representatives) would be chosen by population. It was not an easy compromise but it was 'great.' There was lots more discussion -- the devil is always in the details -- but the compromise stuck.

It's impossible to predict what might have happened had Sherman not stepped forward and had not the majority of votes finally gone for the Compromise. Many historians believe the Convention would have broken up and the fragile Union would have quickly disintegrated and been divided up by the European powers perched on the borders.

Almost exactly one year later the required ninth state ratified the new 'compromise' Constitution and the news was officially handed to Congress July 2, 1788. That compromise saved the Union because the delegates were able to back off a little from their 'principles' and see that survival of the country -- the greater good -- was more important.

So the question for each of us today, whether in our companies, nonprofit boards or government entities, is the same one that faced the framers. Is this the point to give up 100% of nothing to embrace 50% of something that will serve the greater good? This is never an easy question because it means we won't get everything, or even a lot, of what we want. Can we live with it? Can we support it so that we will make progress, if haultingly? For strategic leaders, like Sherman and James Madison, George Washington, Ben Franklin and others at the Convention, the answer was yes. We owe them a huge debt of gratitude.

Will your followers, staff or constituents be able to thank you for compromising for the greater good?

Hard heads for hard times

It was one of those magical days in Paris, just around Bastille Day 2006. I was zooming around the streets with folks from a mastermind retreat on Segways. You've seen these contraptions -- they look like a scooter with out the back end. There is no motor - your body position keeps them going. Some folks find them great fun or at least useful. I wasn't so sure. But I was getting the hang of it and it was an adventure. Then some folks stepped right in front of me...did I mention there are no brakes? The machine stopped dead and the law of physics took over...in other works, I fell backwards and my head hit the pavement...luckily I was wearing a helmet. My companions rushed over but all that was hurt was my pride...it goeth before a fall, you know.

I was thinking about that Segway ride and that fall and my hard head. My mother always claimed I had a hard head. I've come to believe it's a good thing. In fact, as a small business owner, it may be one of my most important assets in these hard times.

These are not times for the faint-of-heart to be in business...there are tough decisions every day. Every aspect of the business must be examined while asking that simple strategic question: Is this going to help me accomplish my mission or will it move me away from it?

You see the question is NOT, "should I spend this money on X?" It's not even "will this give me return on investment?" And it's definitely not, "Where can I cut expenses more?"

In hard times, you must be hardheaded and ask a different set of questions: "Of all the things I could be spending my time and money on, which will move me toward accomplishing my goals?" "What are my priorities for success?" "What will I lay aside so my energies are focused on the most important things?"

Sure it's tough out there. Everyday we could hear some bad news...as predictable as the thunder storms that roll through here in South Florida almost every afternoon. Let the economic storms roll. This hardheaded business owner is taking a page from the Founding Fathers. They certainly faced hard times...there was a price on their heads...but they focused their energies on success. They envisioned a republic that had never existed before. They made it a reality. Their hardheaded determination helped inspire that first Bastille Day.

So remembering all that serves as a guide for today. When you fall off your plan, get up and go again. Create a different future and hardheadedly make it happen. Innovate. Invigorate. Instigate.