Proposed by American behavioral scientist Ed Bliss.
If you spend more time planning ahead for a job, the total time spent doing this job will be reduced.
Think clearly beforehand and don't toss about it.
Several psychologists in the United States have done such an experiment: divide students into three groups for different methods of shooting skills training. The first group of students practiced actual shooting every day for 20 days and recorded their first and last day results. The second group of students also recorded the first and last day's results, but did not do any exercises during this period. The third group of students recorded the results of the first day, and then spent 20 minutes every day making imaginary shots; if they missed the shot, they would make corresponding corrections in their imagination. The experimental results showed that: the second group did not make any progress; the first group's goals increased by 24%; the third group's goals increased by 26%. From this, they came to the conclusion: warm up your mind before acting, conceive every detail of what to do, sort out your mind, and then engrave it deeply in your mind. When you act, you will be handy.
What this experiment tells us is the importance of planning. Without a plan, actions will inevitably be a mess. Only by drawing up a plan of action beforehand and sorting out the steps of doing things will you be able to cope with things freely. Good planning is the beginning of success.
Case number one
Coronia is a large-scale manufacturing company in Australia. It has 3 business divisions: Sugar Division, Construction and Building Materials Division, and Mining and Chemicals Division. Each division is divided into several branches. In recent years, this company has frequently held various meetings in order to meet the strategic plan of the company's overall goals in terms of operation and management. Through these meetings, managers at all levels can understand the business situation and various goals of the entire company. After the monthly board meeting, the general manager of the company will meet with 50 senior executives from various departments to discuss the company's business conditions with them. In addition, the company also convenes two meetings of mid-level managers every year to enable them to understand the various changes in the external environment and their impact on the company's business, and to develop a detailed response plan.
Among the three business divisions of the company, the planning work of the Mining and Chemicals Department led by Herbert is the most successful. The process of planning work is bottom-up. Participants in formulating the plan include managers of the 10 companies that belong to the department, and in some cases the factory directors and business managers of these branches will also participate.
In order to make the pace of each branch company consistent, Herbert always tells the head office's views on inflation and various other economic factors in time to tell the managers of each branch company, so that they can use these factors as a reference when making plans. data. Each branch company starts to formulate its own strategic plan in April each year (the month when the company’s fiscal year starts), which will be completed by August and handed over to most managers. According to company regulations, the strategic plan includes a period of 5 years, and its content includes production goals, investment plans, etc. After receiving these plans, the department manager first selects and arranges the order, and finally formulates a department-level strategic plan on the basis of these plans. The ministerial plan includes the outlook for each branch in the next 5 years, major issues, strategies adopted, and various investment plans. The plan also adjusted and revised the rate of return on investment and the rate of return on present value. The description of the plan is concise and concise. Page 1 only includes some important data, such as: pre- and post-tax profit targets, return on investment, and the total investment amount of the entire plan. Page 2 includes some more detailed statistics, including the financial plans of each branch and most of the total financial plans.
Then, each business department must send its plan to the finance department of the head office, and the finance department will send the departmental plan to the general manager's office in September. In the next month, the general management office and the managers of each department will carefully study and discuss their plans. The head office may approve the expansion plans of some units, and the head office may not approve the expansion plans of other units. Instead, let them concentrate their efforts to reduce the cost of products. The head office may also let a branch implement a plan to increase the production of a certain product.
Before November of each year, the head office will send various guidance documents to the major ministries. The documents specify in detail which plans have been approved and what hopes the head office has for the ministries. In the last few months of this fiscal year, each department re-formulated its own strategic plans and prepared budgets based on the guidance documents issued by the head office. Subsequently, the head office worked out the overall company plan based on these plans. The master plan should give a detailed description of the goals and strategies of the entire company, along with necessary statistics.
Through these complicated procedures, the final plan is indeed feasible. To further ensure the smooth completion of the strategic plan, the company has also established a "tracking review" system. The system stipulates that before the end of each fiscal year, each branch company should assign special auditors to inspect the implementation of the plan and write a "tracking audit" report, so that the forecast for the year can be updated. Is accurate. It is such a rigorous planning process and supervision and execution process that ensure that Koronia rarely makes mistakes in its operations, thus maintaining the company's thriving development momentum.
Case two
The well-known Kingdee financial software company in China emphasizes that "all things are planned beforehand, and if there is no advance, they will be abandoned." This is an old saying, but it is still very effective when used in modern management. MRPⅡ/ERP (manufacturing resource planning/enterprise resource planning) emphasizes "plan management as the core", for example, how many orders are expected next month, how many products will be produced, and then considering materials and production arrangements based on these needs. Taking planning management as the core is a very important management thought. An enterprise must first have a strategic goal, and secondly have a strategic plan, and even the implementation of the strategy, to ensure the completion of the strategy. If there is no target, it becomes a headless fly.
In the development process of Kingdee, every year it will book the business target for the next year. With goals, work has a direction. After 1998, the scale of the company began to grow, with many branches across the country, more than one product, and more and more external cooperation. Every quarter, the company will evaluate the implementation of the plan and what adjustments should be made to the plan. The concept of "predetermining everything, and failing to prevent it" has brought many management effects to the company.
"Forewarned is forearmed, without prejudging the waste". To do one thing, only good ideas are not enough. The plan can scientifically analyze your vision and let you know whether your vision can be realized. The plan can be used as a guide for you to realize the vision process, which greatly saves your time and reduces stress. With a good plan, you have a good start.
Once people make a certain choice, it is like embarking on a path of no return. The force of inertia will make this choice constantly self-reinforcing and prevent you from going out easily.
To do one thing, only good ideas are far from enough. The plan can carry on the scientific design to your idea, let you know whether your idea can be realized. The plan can be used as a guide for you to realize the vision process, which greatly saves your time and reduces stress. With a good plan, there is a good start.
In life, what we need is not only predictability, but more importantly, how to make our foresight a reality. This requires a manager to make those who gather around have the same pursuit as you, and work hard to understand the future with you. At the same time, the development strategy must be forward-looking, predict the future direction, maintain integrity, and not allow prejudice to dominate the development strategy.
Of course, without careful analysis of the internal and external environment, without predicting the main factors that may change, and formulating preliminary plans, but by making unrealistic plans, simply planning for the plan, it will bring greater harm. Therefore, managers must recognize the situation clearly, brainstorm ideas, make due predictions about the main factors that may undergo major changes, formulate multiple plans accordingly, and select the most satisfactory plan and alternative plan. Only in this way can the enterprise remain invincible in the fierce market competition.
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