An Easy Plan to Affect Change: Part 1

A high-opportunity area exists when you see “low-hanging fruit” – issues that you can grab ahold of and change immediately. But you don’t want to just grab it and go. That’s why I’ve created the “60-minute business plan,” a strategy that’s easy to implement and effective at addressing your high-opportunity areas to affect change. Part 1 is an introduction to the plan.

The plan involves a total of 12 simple steps, and I’ll explain the first half here: 

1. Issue: What business issue do you want to address? Use this 60-minute planning exercise to help understand how to address your issue, and be as specific as possible. For instance, you might decide: “I need help establishing and reinforcing performance expectations for my employees.” In this example, your core issue is job performance expectations. Write this down and start working toward a solution.   

2. Assumptions: What will happen in your company if this issue remains unresolved? What will happen if it is resolved? Finally, what is the potential financial benefit to the company if it is resolved?    

3. Values: What are your company’s values as they relate to this issue? This could be employee empowerment, financial growth, quality products, community service, or anything in between. Be true to your company as you identify what really matters to you.

4. Vision: What are the best imaginable things that could happen for you personally, and for the company, if this issue is resolved? Could you have more positive online reviews? Higher sales? Absolutely. The sky’s the limit at the vision-casting stage.   

5. Customer Benefit: How will the company’s customers benefit if this issue is resolved? This is where you turn your values and vision outward. Consider how customers will benefit, being as specific as possible about the long-term economic gain for them. 

6. Other Beneficiaries: Who else will benefit if this issue is resolved? Consider your co-workers, your families, and the community at large.