Simply Stated:
Understanding your own preferences toward business planning can ensure you get to highlight your natural strengths.
As a “people oriented” workplace personality, tapping into your own passion for excellence and pulling out the best in others are your greatest contributions to the team.
Stretching your skills in other areas may be necessary to ensure the team is cohesive and all aspects of a great plan are developed.
For people oriented workplace personalities, the business planning process is a great opportunity to showcase your skills to facilitate, mediate and inspire the team to look for holistic and meaningful plans for the year. The following post is intended to help clearly identify specific preferences, strengths and challenges for the people oriented workplace personality, so the planning process can optimize your strengths and minimize challenges and allow you to full appreciate team mates with a different perspective.
For people oriented workplace personalities the following are the key preferences:
Informal process that allows the individuals to be authentic and spontaneous.
Evaluation of both the tasks required and the human potential required to deliver results.
Full engagement from all participants.
As you move through each of the stages of business planning keep the following strengths and challenges in mind:
1. Preparation for the business planning meeting.
Key strength: Evaluation of the team itself, what are the skills and talents present that contributed to the success or failures of the present year.
Key challenge: Attention to detail in the planning materials for the fact and logic based discussions.
2. The business planning meeting itself.
Key strength: Facilitation of the session and the ability to mediate between team mates that see things from different perspectives to bring the entire group onto the same page.
Key challenge: Following a formal process and review of administrative details.
3. Development of strategies and action plans.
Key strength: Recognizing and articulating the human resources impact of initiatives and also identifying which areas will be resisted and strategies to gain full support.
Key challenge: Desire to tackle too many meaningful objectives and the ability to translate them from the high level intention to detailed specific project plans.
4. Ongoing management of the business plan.
Key strength: Communication of progress and celebration of success.
Key challenge: Follow through on the more administrative elements of the plan.
Reflecting on your preferences, strengths and challenges can make you a more effective team member and help produce a comprehensive business plan.
Lynn