Leaders Cannot Afford to Neglect Planning By John C. Maxwell

"Good planning always costs less than good reacting."
~ Wayne Schmidt

In October 2010 the most expensive public works project in America, ARC, officially met its demise. The project would have constructed two tunnels beneath the Hudson River to add much-needed railways between New Jersey and Manhattan. However, poor planning led to wasteful spending and put the project on pace to exceed its budget by at least $1 billion.

A federal audit of the project brought to light an embarrassing lack of planning. The audit charged NJ Transit with failing to draw up plans to combat fraud and waste in its financial practices. The same audit chastised the FTA for authorizing NJ Transit to spend $1.35 billion without having seen a project management plan, master schedule, or financial plan from the agency. On account of ARC's runaway costs and inadequate strategic plans, New Jersey Governor Chris Christie decided to cancel the project.

The Appeal of Planning Ahead

As a leader, you may be tempted to initiate action without taking the time to map out plans. After all, it feels unproductive to think about how to do something when you could simply roll up your sleeves and start making things happen. However, it's far less of an investment to prepare for a project in advance than to repair a project after it has gone awry.

In leadership, all is well that begins well. Leaders who carefully craft strategies enjoy success, while those who haphazardly race forward experience heartache.
Strategy functions as a leader's blueprint, playbook, or script. It aligns action and focuses energy toward a goal, preventing costly delays and wasted resources. By following a coherent strategy, leaders arrive at a predetermined destination instead of wandering in an uncertain direction.

These nine simple steps outline the leadership planning process. I trust they will be beneficial to you as you make plans for a successful 2011.

Predetermine Your Course of Action
Lay Out Your Goals
Adjust Your Priorities
Notify Key Personnel

Allow Time for Acceptance
Head into Action
Expect Problems
Always Point to Your Successes
Daily Review Your Progress

ABOUT

John C. Maxwell is an internationally respected leadership expert, speaker, and author who has sold more than 19 million books. Dr. Maxwell is the founder of EQUIP, a non-profit organization that has trained more than 5 million leaders in 126 countries worldwide. Each year he speaks to the leaders of diverse organizations, such as Fortune 500 companies, foreign governments, the National Football League, the United States Military Academy at West Point, and the United Nations. A New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and Business Week best-selling author, Maxwell has written three books that have sold more than a million copies: The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership, Developing the Leader Within You, and The 21 Indispensable Qualities of a Leader. His blog can be read at JohnMaxwellOnLeadership.com. He can be followed atTwitter.com/JohnCMaxwell.

Do you have a personal plan for growth? By John C Maxwell

On Twitter and Facebook on Sunday, I quoted my friend Paul Meyer, mentioning that he was the person who helped me create my first personal growth plan. In the hours afterward, I received dozens of requests, all asking the same thing: “How do you create a personal growth plan?”

The answer to that takes more than 140 characters, so I thought I’d post it here:

The key to a life of continual learning and improvement lies in developing a plan for growth and following through with it. Paul Meyer knew this. In fact, when I first met him and we had lunch, he asked me a question that changed my life: “Do you have a personal plan for growth?”

In answer, I told him about my work schedule and how much I did and how I was learning on the job.  I kept going on and on.  The more I talked, the more obvious it was that I had no plan.  Paul helped me find one.

Growth is does not happen by chance. If you want to be sure to grow, you need a plan—something strategic, specific, and scheduled.Motivational speaker Earl Nightingale said, “If a person will spend one hour a day on the same subject for five years, that person will be an expert on that subject.” Isn’t that incredible? It shows how far we are able to go when we have the discipline to make growth our daily practice.

So if you want to follow a plan, recommend that you start by identifying an area or two in which you desire to grow, such as leadership. Then start gathering useful resources – in print, online, on video, etc. Now your goal is to schedule learning time EVERY DAY. Here’s the rule of thumb I’ve used for years: read one book a month and digest one article/podcast per week.

As an example, this is the weekly schedule – 5 days a week, 1 hour a day – that I recommend for personal growth as a leader:

Monday: Spend one hour with a devotional to develop your spiritual life.

Tuesday: Spend one hour listening to a leadership recording.

Wednesday: Spend one hour filing* quotes and reflecting on the contents of Tuesday’s material.

Thursday: Spend one hour reading a book on leadership.

Friday: Spend half of the hour reading the book and the other half filing and reflecting.

The average American adult watches close to 30 hours of television per week, with little positive return. What do you think would happen if you devoted just five of those hours to personal growth?

Why not start acting on a plan today and find out? Then let me know if it was worth it.

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You are invitated to be the ONE to use "your personal voice" because your voice is a "voice of changes" Come to get more info from ournext event Chick-fil-A Leadercast- Costa Rica on Facebook.