At Oliver Wight, we say that people, behaviors, processes, and tools are the critical success factors for any effective planning process. However, it is increasingly apparent that leadership behaviors require significant attention to unlock value and outperform competitors. In this blog, we look at four behaviors from C-suite leadership that can drive real results from Integrated Business Planning (IBP).
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1. Building trust
Building trust is at the top of the list of leadership attributes critical to business success. Key to this is committing to a plan and then delivering that plan. Leaders who do what they have committed to do, and lead by example, modeling behavior, set the expectation for their teams to do the same.
With IBP, leaders must develop plans spanning a four-to-24-month horizon, based on assumptions backed by experience, industry knowledge, an understanding of market dynamics, and many other factors. As the future is unknown, plans are not perfect; however, how leaders react to changes plays a critical role in determining whether their people perform well in the planning process.
2. Operationalizing strategy
Many companies have well-thought-out, comprehensive strategies, that can be robustly operationalized through IBP. The owners of each of the IBP review steps are typically members of the leadership team. Each leader has a critical role in bringing the strategy to life by creating plans that align to the strategy and then executing those plans.
Effective C-suite leaders can articulate a vision, develop strategies and actions that support its delivery, and mobilize their teams to execute the plans and actions necessary to deliver the strategy. These leaders motivate their teams by articulating what needs to be done and by when.
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3. Planning for the future
Many businesses face the pressure of short-term performance expectations or highly volatile business environments, which can often take priority for senior leaders of the company. While the short term is important to deliver, without sufficient time allocated to planning for the future, leaders overlook the resources that must be allocated and decisions that must be made to bring new products and services to the marketplace.
Meaningful change takes time to implement, and if that change is not cultivated and managed due to a short-term focus, businesses can lose their competitive edge. The ability to think and execute short-term plans while concurrently planning for the future is a significant leadership capability that delivers a competitive marketplace advantage.
4. Communicating clearly and compellingly
Leadership involves conveying thoughts in a clear, concise, and compelling manner. This means thorough preparation, choosing words carefully, and utilizing the full range of communication possibilities. Knowing the company culture and the capabilities of their teams and participants is important for C-suite leaders to understand in order to effectively frame and communicate key messages .
In the Integrated Business Planning process, the trust between the process leader and process owner is key to ensuring that the C-suite does not have to attend the majority of preparation meetings during the monthly IBP reviews. The owner must have confidence that the leader has communicated clearly, concisely, and compellingly, and then convey their findings and the business’s needs clearly, concisely, and compellingly to the team during the review meeting.
In part two, we uncover four more behaviors from C-suite leaders that ensure results from IBP.
Read our white paper: C-Suite Leadership in Integrated Business Planning.