Demystifying strategic planning

In today's episode our hosts Brenton Gowland and Ron Tomlian start a series of episodes on Demystifying Strategic Planning.

The topics covered in this first part of the series are: 

• What is strategic planning
• When should we plan
• What is a plan
• What are the fundamental elements of strategic planning
  • Where are we now?
  • Where do we want to be?
  • How do we get there?
  • How do we know when we've arrived?
  • Why are we doing this in the first place?
• Wrap up and recap

Adapt_CO
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SA Business Builders
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Transcript

Brenton Gowland: 0:00

Welcome to Season Two of the Business Builders Podcast. Today we're starting a series about demystifying strategic planning. And Ron warns us that we may also need to plan an obituary for him because he's about to go shark diving. And I talk about the fact that if there is a silver lining to the pandemic, it's caused us to focus on planning. Well, hello Ron Tomlian. It has been a while since we did our last podcast.

Ron Tomlian: 0:25

Hello, Brenton Gowland. It has been a while.

Brenton Gowland: 0:28

Indeed. Well, last year, we successfully completed 12 episodes of the Business Builders podcast, which we're on here today, which I think was a bit of an achievement. So I'm happy with that.

Ron Tomlian: 0:39

I'm happy with it. But I think we can do better.

Brenton Gowland: 0:41

I know, we've had just Hello everyone who's listening again, we've been away for a while. So it's probably been two months. Now since we've put on an episode. And in between seeing you last time for episode 12 of the Business Builders podcast. I've had COVID, I've have been in lockdown three times Ron's been on holidays, and is going again shortly. So lots of things have happened since we've seen you last.

Ron Tomlian: 1:03

Yes and lots of change in people's attitudes and their concerns about things. So maybe it's time to think about 2022. And how we get into a more positive frame of mind. And for businesses, that is often about planning.

Brenton Gowland: 1:18

Planning indeed. Now, if you're listening internationally, we are here in South Australia, in a place called Adelaide. And it's a great place. But we've opened our borders up recently. And we've joined the rest of the world in being exposed to COVID in a in a much greater way. And that has again affected the way we're doing business. So as Ron saying, planning has become so important because things are changing on a daily basis.

Ron Tomlian: 1:42

And when you think about that, and we're going to talk about strategic planning, what is it? How do you do it over the next couple of episodes?

Brenton Gowland: 1:49

Yes.

Ron Tomlian: 1:50

When you think about planning on, to my way of thinking strategic planning is about how do I adapt to the environment that I'm in? And what are my intentions for the way that I'm going to adapt to that environment?

Brenton Gowland: 2:01

Correct. And I, I was running some lunches last year, and funnily enough, it was called the Adapt series lunches. And then I've gone on to create a business called Adapt_CO from that very reason. But

Ron Tomlian: 2:11

That was a nice introduction, wasn't it?

Brenton Gowland: 2:12

Well, thank you. What I was going to say is that at the lunches, what we really discovered is that a lot of people were searching for what should be the shape of my business moving forward. Everything's changing so quickly. And you and I were having a bit of a conversation earlier. And we're talking about the fact that if COVID has done anything for us, it's actually brought us to the table to focus on planning.

Ron Tomlian: 2:34

Because when you're in a very changeable environment, and change rich environment, you have to adapt and do you planning is a mechanism for making not necessarily making the unknowable knowable, but it's making it more bearable. It's giving some degree of certainty to the ambiguity that's ahead of you.

Brenton Gowland: 2:56

Fair enough.

Ron Tomlian: 2:56

And I don't exactly know how the world's going to change, but I know what I'm going to be doing to try and adapt to that world. So it gives people comfort.

Brenton Gowland: 3:05

And I think the planning is all about crystal balling. And it used to be crystal balling what would be happening in three to five years time. Now it's almost crystal balling what will happen next month. But look, I might just hold us there for a sec.

Ron Tomlian: 3:17

Okay

Brenton Gowland: 3:17

Because we're getting a bit carried away without actually introducing our episode this week, I think people are getting the impression though before we do that. Now as far as sponsors are concerned, we have Borough Markets who have given a space for this great studio that we're talking to you from now. Borough Markets are a digital marketing agency that helps you get to new clients, wherever they are on whatever device. So we would encourage you to check them out and boroughmarkets.com.au That is spelled B-O-R-O-U-G-H markets.com.au. So they're one of our sponsors run. What's another one?

Ron Tomlian: 3:55

Adapt_CO I think.

Brenton Gowland: 3:57

Hey that's me.

Ron Tomlian: 3:57

Yeah.

Brenton Gowland: 3:58

I'm just at the moment doing the promo and the behind the scenes stuff and the editing and so forth. And we were just talking about the fact we need a sound editor. So to save us a bit of time and to be part of this posse. So if you're out there and you're listening, and you want to be a sound editor, hit us up on LinkedIn, because we might just use your services.

Ron Tomlian: 4:16

There you go.

Brenton Gowland: 4:17

And then we have SA Business Builders. So we ran our last event here in South Australia. Again, if you're listening internationally, that was in December last year, and that was fantastic. We did a CEOs versus young guns. So we did this live reverse mentoring thing. And I interviewed a 31 year old CEO. And she gave her story about how she got to where she was and what she was looking for from mentors. And the very interesting thing that she said is what she needs most from mentors now is for them to really listen to her and not just tell her what to do, but to listen to what she needs. I thought that was actually a really interesting insight. Because a lot of people who get a lot of experience like talking about their experience. Do we really listen To give the experience that we should really give? So that's a long way of saying si Business Builders is a sponsor. And this year coming forward, we're going to have a great deal more events, probably 10 of them COVID willing,

Ron Tomlian: 5:11

And everything is at the behest of COVID At the moment, but, you know, we can see light at the end of the tunnel.

Brenton Gowland: 5:17

And life goes on we, you know, I've had COVID once so far, and thankfully, my experience was good. I'm double Vax, and I had symptoms for all of three hours. So I'm very lucky, and very thankful that that was the case. But we just have to press on. And I think this year is going to be about pressing on finding ways to make sure that we can keep business moving forward and on that,

Ron Tomlian: 5:42

Is this a case of carry on regardless, or

Brenton Gowland: 5:44

Carry on because you have to

Ron Tomlian: 5:47

Just thinking about the old movie.

Brenton Gowland: 5:49

I'm not quite that old. I can say that at the moment.

Ron Tomlian: 5:52

Yeah, you can.

Brenton Gowland: 5:53

So just in case you are new to this programme, Ron is actually my mentor. And I'm going to be interviewing him a bit today about our topic. But he's, he's got a few more years on him than me. So whatever movie he was talking about, I'm not sure maybe, you know, yeah, you can tell us about that.

Ron Tomlian: 6:09

Yeah, I'll use my walking frame. To get out of the, out of that particular one.

Brenton Gowland: 6:15

Fair enough. Anywho. What we're talking about today is demystifying strategic planning. Now, we all know strategic planning is incredibly important. And if we want to be able to achieve the objectives and the goals that we have for our businesses, we need to plan because failure to have a plan. We are really....

Ron Tomlian: 6:36

Planning to fail.

Brenton Gowland: 6:37

Planning to fail. Yeah, I was trying to find a better way to say it because

Ron Tomlian: 6:40

It's all a bit trite. Isn't it?

Brenton Gowland: 6:41

It really is.

Ron Tomlian: 6:43

But it's unfortunately, it's trite, because it's true. A lot of people will talk about planning, and then not do it.

Brenton Gowland: 6:50

Or they'll create a plan, they'll pay some and nothing against consultants, because I'm doing that at the moment. But they'll get those big, fat documents that you know, here's your strategic plan with everything about it. And then it goes on the shelf. And famously, nothing ever happens with it.

Ron Tomlian: 7:05

The most expensive doorstop in the world.

Brenton Gowland: 7:07

Correct. And then you can tell your board that you've done it.

Ron Tomlian: 7:10

Yeah.

Brenton Gowland: 7:10

So we're in a different world. Now we're in a world where things have to move on a daily basis and change on a monthly basis. And I think it has been good for people as far as planning is concerned, because it's forced them to the table.

Ron Tomlian: 7:22

And one of the questions you're talking about before Brenton when we were discussing this is when do you plan?

Brenton Gowland: 7:28

Yeah. And that's exactly right. So what time of year, are we now we're in January?

Ron Tomlian: 7:33

And the answer from my perspective to that question is always. You, there's always a time to be planning one thing or another. And so the time of the year, this time of the year, a lot of people start they're planning why, why do they start this time of the year?

Brenton Gowland: 7:50

You know, we would plan every January. And I think it's because you know, you'd be waiting two or three weeks to get going. So it was a really good time to do it. And the question we what we were talking about earlier is you've got a financial year, which runs in Australia, from July to June. So you know, a lot of people will want to launch a plan in July to get started. But then because we've got the calendar year and a bit of a break there a lot of people do their planning or goal setting. You run a goal setting retreat in January, February. I think it's because people have time on their hands. Maybe they're refreshed.

Ron Tomlian: 8:21

I think it's because it's not the time, but it's the headspace

Brenton Gowland: 8:25

Nucleus used to advertise all the time, like we used to push out, hey, now's the time to think about planning. We do that two times a year Christmas and June.

Ron Tomlian: 8:34

And And when we're talking about strategic planning, it's not planning for, what am I going to be doing in the next couple of days? It's big picture stuff. And I always recall this particular event or experience that I had, I had a person I was coaching. And we talked about the fact that they wanted to develop a strategic plan. And I said, Well, look, if you're just gonna do it yourself, and you can was a small business, you probably kind of need a day worth of time set aside to do your planning.

Brenton Gowland: 9:07

Just the day?

Ron Tomlian: 9:08

Well, I said it's, you know, I think it was about five people in the business. And he was going to do it himself as a first step. I was encouraging him to involve more people, but he wanted to get it underway. And I said, Well, look, by the time we get together next month, I want to see in your diary that there's a day put aside. And so he got back to me next month. And he was very proudly putting his diary in front of me was electronic diary. And he said, look, there you go, see there's half an hour there between those two meetings. And there's another half hour and the next day between those two meetings. And there's an hour on Thursday, between that planning session for clients and and over the course of a month. He had put aside in half hour an hour blocks, eight hours, and

Brenton Gowland: 9:52

Interesting.

Ron Tomlian: 9:53

And I said, no, no, that's not the way it works. He said but it's a day.

Brenton Gowland: 9:56

I like the way his brain works. It's not practical, but it makes sense.

Ron Tomlian: 10:01

And I said, the problem with your theory of just putting these little snippets aside is it's about headspace as much as anything. Because when you think you want to think strategically, it is not about getting all you have to get some time, you have to have a buffer between the day to day, McEvoy said in the book, the four disciplines of execution...

Brenton Gowland: 10:22

Yes.

Ron Tomlian: 10:22

What he called the whirlwind, getting out of the whirlwind of the day to day and having enough headspace to think strategically.

Brenton Gowland: 10:29

So this is typically why people go on retreat. So they go away for, you know, a weekend at a winery or a venue or somewhere where they take their staff and they do a planning retreat.

Ron Tomlian: 10:38

So at this time of the year, January, a lot of people have had holidays, they have, hopefully, they have had time off not to think about what's going on at the office or in the business. And they're refreshed, and they're looking forward. And so they're in the right headspace. And that's incredibly important. I'm not saying you can't do that other times a year, quite the opposite. If you make the time and you get the right sort of mindset, you can do it anytime.

Brenton Gowland: 11:05

Let's just explore that question of when, Yeah, when should you plan because the whole thing is, there should always be an active plan that you can come back and measure against, you need a baseline, if you don't have an active plan, don't wait, get stuck into doing a plan, Immediately. We can talk a bit about how you can do that a little bit later in this episode. So if there's an absence of a plan, you need a plan. So plan, if you've got a plan already in place, and you're measuring against it, you should be updating that plan regularly. Now, whatever time interval that is, is up to you. But the other one is when you start to find gaps and like when I go into a business, and I find that there's several different groups of people who've all got different ideas in their head. So one of the things I do is I go in and interview key staff. And you'll find that one person's got this idea and they're doing something over there, one person's got this idea or a team and they're doing this over here. And people see things differently. That's a sure sign that if people are not all on the same page that you need a plan immediately.

Ron Tomlian: 12:01

And I think, you know, what is a plan anyway? I mean, forget the the structure of it.

Brenton Gowland: 12:08

It's a map saying we're going in this direction.

Ron Tomlian: 12:10

Absolutely. Right. It's a form of communication for the organisation.

Brenton Gowland: 12:14

Correct.

Ron Tomlian: 12:15

It's getting people as you quite rightly sent on the same page, however you do it, it's about getting people on the same page and saying, This is how we are going to adapt to the environment that we're in, this is how we're going to respond or get ahead of the environment that we're in. And the time to change it is when the environment changes now, quite obviously, right at the moment, there's a lot of change going on. So how often do you have to revise your plan? Every time there's a major change.

Brenton Gowland: 12:46

Or maybe you have a might be a monthly or, you know, you should be checking against your plan, I would say almost weekly in different departments.

Ron Tomlian: 12:55

Yeah. And a lot of it depends on the level of detail that you're talking about. But when there are major changes to the environment, that should be major, well, there should be at least an acknowledgement of how is our plan going to help us adapt to this, if it doesn't acknowledge that or if it doesn't have a way of dealing with the change that's happening in the environment, then we've got to change it.

Brenton Gowland: 13:19

Okay.

Ron Tomlian: 13:19

If it is capable of dealing with the environment, we just keep going on with it.

Brenton Gowland: 13:23

So in short, when should you have a plan? You should have a plan, you should actually get to the planning table, if you don't have a plan in place.

Ron Tomlian: 13:29

Osh, absolutely.

Brenton Gowland: 13:30

If people are running to their own agendas,

Ron Tomlian: 13:32

Or hopefully,if you get ahead of what you were and not running to the same beat, so you need the map. And if the environment is against you, and that that's going to come down to those four questions of what is a plan, which we'll talk about later, but if the environment is against you, you should be constantly either reviewing your plan or updating your plan. So that's three, I'm sure there's probably other reasons you have plan if there's a different planning, and you achieve more quickly than you thought you direction in the business, and you know, maybe a circumstance within the business is going to change your focus within the business is going to change. were going to. Well, then you've got to start plotting the next move.

Brenton Gowland: 14:09

Correct. Now, just before because, again, we're going to take this in bite sized chunks, everyone who's listening. So today, it's really like, when should you plan and as we just saying, if you don't have a plan, make a plan. Don't wait. And famously, I used to have, you know, a person around me who used to say, I don't care what the player looks like, write it on the back of a napkin, you know, and a plan doesn't have to be complicated. A plan can simply be dot points on a page if it needs to be but you know, people can get and I remember I used to get way back when we started Nucleus. They used to get to be overawed with the whole planning thing because you know, what framework am I going to use? What am I? How does Porter's Five Forces fit into this to create a balanced scorecard? What am I doing here? How are these things are working together?

Ron Tomlian: 14:53

And if you were to go to a university library and I work at university so I can say this way without being disparaging. You go into the section on planning, and there are literally shelves and shelves, in fact, entire bookcases full of strategic planning books.

Brenton Gowland: 15:11

Yeah.

Ron Tomlian: 15:12

And they're usually about two inches thick.

Brenton Gowland: 15:13

That's right.

Ron Tomlian: 15:14

And it's all about the techniques. And that's fantastic. But people get too involved in the techniques without asking the fundamentals.

Brenton Gowland: 15:22

Yes.

Ron Tomlian: 15:23

And that that gets down to what are the fundamental elements of strategic planning? And I'd like to do talk about that in the sense of what are the questions you want to

Brenton Gowland: 15:35

The thing that's made planning, the answer? easiest for me ever, is having a third party and you did this with when I was at MusicSA. You came in and you asked us questions. And because I always find that the plan is generally already locked up inside the the IP, the thinking of the key people in the business, or sometimes even their suppliers, or customers or whatever else. And there's something to be said for coming in grabbing people and asking questions. So we talked earlier about going off on a retreat and, you know, doing, you know, fixed planning, sometimes you just need to have people, someone else come and ask you questions. And you'll answer these questions and be amazed of what actually comes of that. Doing that. That's how I did my first business plan. An accountant came and spent a few hours with me, and he asked me a whole heap of questions. And before I knew, and I had my first business plan when I was 30 years old.

Ron Tomlian: 16:27

So the question I have for you today.

Brenton Gowland: 16:29

Yes.

Ron Tomlian: 16:30

Do you want me to reveal what those four questions are that form the basis of strategic planning?

Brenton Gowland: 16:35

I think we should Ron. I think those four questions will become the basis of our next four episodes.

Ron Tomlian: 16:40

There you go.

Brenton Gowland: 16:41

Go for it.

Ron Tomlian: 16:42

Okay. So if I if you distill down all the information that's in those books, and get away from the techniques, and the frameworks, all of which are important, all of which provide some value to people who undertake planning. If you get down to the four questions, it's simply this. Number one. Well, let me ask you, where should where should we start with our questioning?

Brenton Gowland: 17:06

We should start with where we are

Ron Tomlian: 17:08

Okay. Absolutely. Because

Brenton Gowland: 17:10

If you're on a map.

Ron Tomlian: 17:11

Yeah, if you're on a map,

Brenton Gowland: 17:12

You got to work out where you are.

Ron Tomlian: 17:14

If you say, I want to go to New York, the first question I would ask you is, where are you starting from?

Brenton Gowland: 17:18

Yes.

Ron Tomlian: 17:19

Because the trip from Adelaide is going to be very different than the trip from Chicago. So we have to know where we start from. And unfortunately, because it's so obvious, it often gets forgotten.

Brenton Gowland: 17:31

So that's question number one is it?

Ron Tomlian: 17:32

Question number one, where are we now? And that means a little bit of analysis, or maybe a lot of analysis, understanding. Who are my customers? What are they want? Who am I competitors? What are they doing? What's the environment like? Is it conducive to what I'm trying to do? You know, what am I people like? So there's different levels, or different levels of

Brenton Gowland: 17:51

Lets keep it high level for this, because we can get into those details another day. So first question, is where where are we now?

Ron Tomlian: 17:58

Thank you for keeping me on track. Okay, number one, where are we now? Then the next obvious question is, well, if this is where we are now, where do I want to be? And sometimes people start with that endpoint in mind without asking that question, where are we now. But certainly, where do we want to be? You know, what are our aspirations? Within a certain timeframe?

Brenton Gowland: 18:15

Yes, do we want to be in New York, but we can't travel there yet because of COVID. So we might have to settle for Sydney.

Ron Tomlian: 18:20

Yes, absolutely. So being able to answer that question, and articulate it, and have a good understanding of what that means. You know, like I asked my, the members of my tech groups, what a success mean to you, and you're able to articulate that. Third question, I know where I am now. I know where I want to be. How do I get there? And that's the strategy. And unfortunately, a lot of people jump to what are we going to do? How are we going to do it? I should say, how are we going to do stuff? Because it's the fun part is the creative part. But you've got to be able to answer those two questions first, to put the context around the or the framework around, if we're going to do something in what why are we doing?

Brenton Gowland: 19:00

Yeah, great.

Ron Tomlian: 19:00

Okay.

Brenton Gowland: 19:01

So that's three.

Ron Tomlian: 19:02

That's three. And the fourth question is, how will I know when I've arrived? So what are the measurements I'm going to use to make sure that when I get to where I want to be, I'm absolutely sure that I'm there.

Brenton Gowland: 19:13

Great.

Ron Tomlian: 19:14

Yeah. You know, so, you know, using the Sydney analogy, if I'm able to say to you look, I'm in a place where there's a bridge that looks like a coat hanger and a building that looks like a couple of seashells arranged on top of each other. You probably say, Yeah, you're in Sydney.

Brenton Gowland: 19:29

Whereas I might for my business, say when I'm in a hotel, and I'm, everything's packed down, and I can look out over the Harbour Bridge, then I've arrived. Yeah, what is what it looks like to you.

Ron Tomlian: 19:38

Yeah, regardless go to so what you need to have those measurements in place. And that's something again, that's often forgotten. Because being able to plot your course along the way, and have yard sticks and milestones, incredibly important.

Brenton Gowland: 19:52

So I hear that Simon Sinek inspired a fifth question.

Ron Tomlian: 19:56

Yeah, and I'm increasingly inclined in the where do we want to be, being able to answer the question, why are we doing this in the first place?

Brenton Gowland: 20:06

So the fifth question is, why are we doing this in the first place?

Ron Tomlian: 20:08

And it's certainly up there, before we get down to I've seen that 500 times. So many different meetings someone the detail, why are we doing this? And being able to answer that question, why? You know, what do we believe in? What makes us different? Why should people be using us? You know, the fundamental and, you know, look at Simon Sineks discussion on YouTube. His talk about the Golden Circles. It's fantastic. will play it, You'd be surprised how many people haven't seen it though. So, you know, get out there and have a look at Simon Sineks explanation of the why.

Brenton Gowland: 20:41

Its very good.

Ron Tomlian: 20:41

It is very important.

Brenton Gowland: 20:43

And so the next four, maybe five episodes, we've got to expand on that. So again, those those five questions are, where are we now? Where do we want to go? How are we going to get there? How do we know when we've arrived? And then why are we doing this anyway? And so that's the real core you're saying Ron on a strategic planning?

Ron Tomlian: 21:02

In my opinion, you know, getting down to it. Strategic planning is being able to help you make decisions, and every day, is this helping me go where I want to go in the way I want to go.

Brenton Gowland: 21:15

So this is Season Two of our podcast, we want to do, at least as we said, 24 episodes this year. So the first few episodes are going to be on really demystifying what is strategic planning and making it as easy as possible for us. Because for us to really excel this year, we really need to plan well, and that shouldn't be hard.

Ron Tomlian: 21:35

None of its hard, because it's just answering a simple question. And I've got to say, and this is no disrespect to those people who make their money out of strategic planning.

Brenton Gowland: 21:45

I do a lot of planning with people.

Ron Tomlian: 21:47

It shouldn't be rocket science.

Brenton Gowland: 21:49

No.

Ron Tomlian: 21:50

It's just answering a couple of fundamental questions. Yes, you can throw in techniques, and you can throw in frameworks. And Porter's Five Forces, as you mentioned before, they're all just helpful in terms of looking at the situation.

Brenton Gowland: 22:03

And in a practical sense. Another thing we're going to be talking about in this season is things like distilling that into a plan on a page and what it takes to do that, because these plans need to really be part of your day to day life, they almost need to be part of your staff inductions, they need to be in your board notes. And if you've got any more than a page plan, you probably have a lot of detail that people are gonna miss. So, again, it's that communication exercise, how do we bring it down to a page. So I think we've got an exciting few episodes coming up. I'm hoping so. Cool. Now, if you're listening, and you're really interested in the strategic planning, and we all should be whether it's new to us, or whether we've been doing it for a long time, just send in your questions, and we'll try to address them over the next four or five episodes as we break down those five questions that we just talked about earlier. And we hope this was useful because strategic planning shouldn't be hard. It involves work, it needs to be thought out correctly and needs to be communicated correctly. But it should be a normal part of business that we shouldn't be avoiding. We should be embracing.

Ron Tomlian: 23:03

And especially this time when there's so much change. We've got to be doing this as a matter of course.

Brenton Gowland: 23:07

Correct, and look, just quickly will remind you of our sponsors. Again, they are Borough Markets who provide us this great studio. boroughmarkets.com.au B-O-R-O-U-G-H Markets, and we've got SA Business Builders

Ron Tomlian: 23:21

And Adapt_CO

Brenton Gowland: 23:22

Which is me. Ron. You're going on holidays now aren't you?

Ron Tomlian: 23:25

I am and if I don't come back and I'm shark bate. I'm going to Port Lincoln to do some shark cage diving. If I don't come back I'm sure you'll do a nice eulogy for me. We're having a great eulogy. And anyone who's listening if you known Gordon Edwards, he's going to step in for Ron.

Brenton Gowland: 23:40

Anyway, everyone have a great week, and it's great to be back and we will see you on the next episode.

Ron Tomlian: 23:47

Fantastic. See you then. Bye for now.