Leaders have a Plan and Vision for Success
ByYou’ve been through the good times and success seemed easy. Now what? Will your leadership skills
support you in bad times? When you are busy scrambling to hold your business together, will your leadership approach be knee-jerk responses? Do you cut jobs, cut products and cut production facilities arbitrarily? Or do you have a plan based on your vision to guide you?
- Your leadership success starts with
your vision and plan
How current is your vision and plan?
How long has it been since you planned for the future? When did you last create a dream of more prosperity? When we are entrepreneurs of small companies, many of us say there isn’t the time for such luxuries. And we say that such planning is what big companies do. We’ll do it when we become big and can afford the luxury of the extra staff to do it. Are we being smart leaders if we don’t have a vision and a plan?
Gosh, if planning and visioning are what big companies have time to do, then the Big 3 automakers ought to be really good at it. We should be able to learn from their leadership. Right?
Leadership is not knee-jerk reaction to events
The Big 3’s declining market share over the last several decades shows that they have become experts in cutting jobs, cutting products and cutting production facilities. That’s where they have focused their leaders’ attention. The question is: are they are still experts in creating dream-come-true cars that Americans want to buy? Do they have the skills and drive to revitalize their companies and be industry leaders again? It seems that all evidence points against this, including two recent articles in the Wall Street Journal. Two Wharton profs (1) take GM to task and a
Harvard Business School prof (2) takes all three automakers to task.
Leadership is not always doing the same things
It appears that all three automakers presented bailout plans in December to Congress that “rationalize”
the size of their businesses, something they’ve done many times over the last few decades. GM and Chrysler repeated the performance in February. That’s great, desperately needed in the current times, but where is the compelling view of the future, the very thing they would be expected to present if they were facing investment bankers? The Wharton and Harvard profs all find the December bailout plans grossly inadequate in important areas that should demonstrate future vision, competitive positioning and future financial viability. Partly, it’s a question of “you’ve known this for a long time, why haven’t you already executed on these plans?” and partly, “if you haven’t moved fast enough in the past, why would we believe you will in the future?” Ford seems to have moved the farthest and the fastest in responding to the market. Interestingly, Ford is the only one not needing a cash flow bailout.
There is a lesson for all of us, here. Creating, maintaining and living to a strategic vision is not any easier for the big guys. In fact, with their massive size, there are many more things to slow them in successfully executing to a plan, compared to smaller companies. It takes determined leadership to stay on top of your industry, something that Toyota and Honda seem to be providing in the automotive world. They have compelling visions of their products and how they are going to design, produce and sell their products. They operate to those visions and their shares of the market are growing in good times and bad. The Big 3 are continuing to sink.
Get a Vision - and Then a Plan: Be a Leader Always
Don’t let your business sink. Get a vision. Whether you are an entrepreneur, a hired gun CEO or a C-level executive, you had a vision when you started out, something that carried you during the growth years. Spend the time to create a vision. If your staff can’t handle the day to day responsibilities without your frequent involvement, then that is where you start. Create a vision of upgrading your staff and their abilities to operate each day independently of you. Then renew your long range vision so you know where you are leading your company.
If you never had a vision, then you’ve simply been lucky so far on the roulette wheel of life. Build a vision to increase your odds of success. You never know when the bad times will come.
References
- Useem, M. and MacDuffie, JP (2008) GM Plan Doesn’t Go Far Enough. Wall Street Journal
Online, December 5, 2008. - White, E. (2008) Expert: Auto Rescue Plans Lack Credibility. Wall Street Journal
Online, December 10, 2008.
