Every so often a management team gets stuck in a rut; that murky sloggy place where for no good reason progress just slows down. Everything takes looooooonger. You discuss the same projects over and over. Nothing much really happens. The pending lists just get a little longer every day. It’s the way you feel during a heat wave when the air conditioning isn’t cranking.
Quick. Schedule an ACTION PLAN meeting.
To make it interesting, take the chairs out of the conference room. Really. Everyone stands. You’ll have more energy in the room and people will work faster so they can go back to their offices and sit down.
At the meeting, each manager presents a specific Action Plan to the group. It has to be for a current project and a timeline is mandatory. Every step in the plan must have the “owners” name. Next, the group improves each plan – with kindness and cheeky sarcasm. Tear it apart – and put it back together again. Make it real and make it better.
Here’s what you’ll get:
1. Action plans galore. Real ones. In writing, for current projects.
2. Better action plans because they have been improved by the team.
3. Momentum. Which should kick off a windstorm of Action Plans. (In fact, you should make sure that it does).
Three months from now, do it again. Do you have a dusty action plan sitting in a drawer?