Hi everyone and welcome to my latest article, where I will share why reactive planning or lack of planning is one of the major causes to loss of businesses productivity, performance, and profits.
Before I dive into it, let me share with you a bit of a background story. A few years ago when I started on my journey to healing myself of a multitude of mental health illnesses, I knew that the many addictions I then had were holding me back from recognising my full potential. There was something I never quite bargained for, that something being how my awareness of all around me at work would grow to exponential levels.
What if what I am about to share with you could save your company a lot of time, energy, stress and money? Would you take action or would you keep going on not noticing the opportunity you are about to read? The truth is, what I am about to share with you is so powerful that when implemented correctly, it can increase the 3 P’s of productivity, performance, and profits upwards and beyond of 10’s of millions of pounds.
Is this intriguing enough? If so, please continue to read on to discover more.
Many who meet me today, never believe me when I share that four years ago I lived with a multitude of mental health problems that I was afraid to disclose to others or personally deal with. Back then, little I knew about higher states of awareness and consciousness and that my view of reality would change for the better. It did start with wanting to end my pain and live a normal life. It is what lead me to discover the powerful teachings of an extraordinary man that fortune put on my path.
When I read his Indie Book Award Winner of 2018 and five times international best-selling book A Path to Wisdom, I started to find many reasons why I’m grateful to my mental illness and why I suffered for so long. It is this book that leads me to Tony’s unique teachings that helped me change my perceptions so I could see my illnesses and every life adversity that followed as gifts that have now created many blessings in my life.
If like me you have attended many meetings within the workplace, you too may have left some of these meetings bewildered wondering just what went on, what happened or what didn’t happen?
I’ve also attended a few meetings where the Project Manager was an unhinged and un-grounded individual who loved to talk about irrelevant subjects such as movies like Reservoir Dogs. I’ve also seen how other people in the meetings would speak for the sake of talking and just wanting to be heard.
As employees when we attend this kind of meetings, we often leave more bewildered than when we arrived. Perhaps you’ve noticed in the meetings you’ve attended that there always seems to be a distinct lack of compromise or a lot of blaming, especially in meetings between clients and contractors. Often one side wants it all their way or the other side does, and this can often lead to hostile, frosty atmospheres and evident tension in the air.
Truth being the client and contractors perspective may never be in alignment for what they want to achieve, both may want to accomplish the same project deliverable, but individual management styles often clash in these meetings and some turn into daily battles of persona.
Have you noticed how some try to dominate proceedings with a physical presence or a threatening demeanour? I have experienced this many times, especially with the kind of Project Managers who are not accountable to anyone on the Project as whom they report too may be located in another part of the country.
This kind of meetings often lead to greater disruption, create more hesitance and inefficiencies especially if Yes/No decisions are taken as is per the norm? People that you and me, are often designated action takers, have deadlines to achieve by set-dates. But the truth is, no real digging deep occurs within or outwith the meeting, to see what is required to be carried out for the assigned actions to be sufficient to meet the deadline.
A typical action plan that is displayed on the meeting room wall or a flip-chart is often not enough to provide much more detailed information. Attention to detail is critical to complete an assigned action; it is what I learned from my regular business coaching sessions with one of the leading experts in the psychology of personal and business success, Tony Jeton Selimi.
Did you know that according to a study done in the USA over $37 Billion is wasted annually on workplace meetings? The question you may be asking yourself is how much is your company wasting on meetings?
Having invested my time, money and energy over the last four years to work with Tony, the World’s Greater Healer, Educator, Coach and Author, I’ve learned many valuable lessons. From day one of embarking on this life-transforming journey with him, I learned the importance of writing my thoughts down and to plan for everything I wanted to achieve in life plays.
He kept emphasising to me how failure to plan is planning to fail. Each time I used to go back to work after his session, I kept noticing how much more energised, clear, productive and focused I would be. I started to notice more and more how many companies who struggle don’t plan in detail and those who did plan they succeeded.
When eventually I did Tony’s five-day Vital Planning Program designed to help you plan in detail the days and actions for the outcomes you want in life, I realised that most planning that is out there in place in the workplace lacks real depth, meaning and is too vague.
Why may you be asking is it essential to write thoughts down? Well, to start with, it allows your mind to:
- Be creative and start the process of turning thoughts into mater.
- It helps you get clear, expands your vision, and establish routes to get there.
- It increases your chances to succeed.
Allowing you to see more than you would by merely following a train of thoughts, ideas that are all to soon forgot. It most definitely will make a big difference to the decisions your going to make, outcomes you’ll create and the actions you’ll take in alignment with your goal which your company may well thank and reward your future self for.
In part two of this three series article I will share the tools that I used to build a Permit System that is fit for purpose and helped me not only get off the countless mental health drugs I was prescribed but also become more focused, energised and productive in everything I now do in my current role and in my private life.
Until next time, stay blessed, focused, and awesome!
Paul McMonagle
p.s. If you are tired of feeling tired, drained of your life force, being addicted, rejected, unfulfilled, feeling depressed, unworthy, having constant relationship and family crisis, and going through health challenges then I recommend you grab a copy of A Path to Wisdom and start your journey to attaining work-life balance, perfect health and inner peace.