US Trust

COACHING IMPROVES STRATEGIC PLANNING

Labor Day has passed. Summer loves have ended. Corporate hearts have turned to thoughts of strategic planning. Fall is the time when many companies determine or review their strategic goals. For some this is a one-day-a-year process. Others hold a planning session each quarter, revising strategy as needed. Regardless of your approach, professional team coaching helps you achieve better results with greater efficiency.

ANALYZE SWOT
To aid companies in strategic planning, Brett and Madelon Miles of Milestones, Inc. use a three phase approach—pre-planning, facilitation and implementation. In the pre-planning phase a Milestones, Inc. coach guides each member of the planning team through an analysis of his or her area’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats (SWOT). Strengths might be the company’s advanced technology, strong management team or patented products. Weaknesses might include old products or a team that hasn’t jelled. Opportunities might be a new group of customers or a lack of competition. Threats might consist of a tight lanbor market or technological advances by a competitor.

In the facilitation phase, the planning team meets and pools their SWOT analyses to identify and prioritize the issues to be addressed. Milestones, Inc. facilitates the discussion to bring out a team’s real needs, which are not always revealed by direct speech. The coach encourages everyone to contribute, not just the outspoken team members. As a trained listener, the coach picks up and highlights themes in the discussion. This helps the team get to the core issues that lead to a strong and unified strategic plan.

CUSTOMERS DRIVE THE PLAN
Bill Barrett, a managing director of U.S. Trust in Los Angeles, enlisted Madelon Miles to facilitate an offsite session to develop the strategic plan for a new branch office. The members of the branch team had not worked together before. Madelon was able to keep the session on track. “In these situations you often get stuck discussing ‘soft issues,’ says Barret. “We walked away with the beginnings of an action plan.”

Milestones, Inc.’s knowledge of current management trends and practices also benefits strategic planners. For example, companies have long based their strategic planning on what management feels are the most important issues. In today’s customer-centered marketplace, however, it’s what the customer wants that sets the agenda for success. This often differs from what management thinks the customer wants. “Madelon has seen solutions that worked in others settings,” says Barrett. “Her wealth of experience,” he adds, “helped us accomplish what we needed to accomplish.”

The final step in successful strategic planning is implementation. Milestones, Inc. helps in two key areas of implementation. One is promoting buy-in to the plan throughout the organization. People need to feel a sense of ownership in the plan; they don’t want to just have it handed to them. We work at all levels in the company to make sure that everyone understands the plan and sees how achieving his or her individual goal can be a part of implementing the overall plan.

Performance improvement is the other key area. This is the most critical element of all, because a goal has no value unless people make the changes necessary to meet it. Our clients have seen the best results when Milestones, Inc. provided team and sometimes individual coaching in support of their strategic plans. Professional coaching helps managers and teams stay focused so that plans become reality. As fall turns to winter, that's a warming thought.