High-Impact Annual Planning: A Blueprint for Success

Cole Abbott (00:00:00 -> 00:00:37)

<silence> Hello, everybody. In today's episode, we're covering annual planning. You'll learn when to focus on it depending on your company's current stage, what the key ingredients are, and how to sequence them, and why mastering it is crucial to long-term success. Thank you. And enjoy. Today we're doing, uh, annual planning. Yeah. Right. We're getting into that time of year where this is a, a big thing. Yeah. An important thing. Yes. Right. Planning for things, even though we know that the plans aren't probably gonna be perfect.

Mark Abbott (00:00:38 -> 00:00:38)

Right.

Cole Abbott (00:00:39 -> 00:00:43)

And things aren't going to go according to plan. Yeah. But that's not a reason to not plan <laugh>.

Mark Abbott (00:00:44 -> 00:00:44)

No. So,

Cole Abbott (00:00:45 -> 00:00:47)

I know you have a lot of thoughts here. Of

Mark Abbott (00:00:47 -> 00:00:48)

Course I do.

Cole Abbott (00:00:48 -> 00:00:49)

So I'll let you kick it off.

Mark Abbott (00:00:49 -> 00:01:15)

I always like to go context, right? So let's talk about stages of development. Right. So, annual planning does not make sense for stage one company. We could argue, I could argue that an annual planning is not necessary. Not not required for a stage two company, right? When you get to stage three or four or five, you have to annually plan it is a core competency. Now, you could avoid doing it, but you're just gonna have a hell of a mess.

Cole Abbott (00:01:16 -> 00:01:20)

Could avoid a lot of things. Exactly. Doesn't mean it's a good thing to do. Exactly.

Mark Abbott (00:01:20 -> 00:03:09)

Exactly. So it really has to do with stages number one. So we need everybody to appreciate that. Stage one obviously is product market fit zero, three months, stage two, three months to one year. So you can see why you don't necessarily need it. But when you're in the stage three where you should be thinking and planning out one to two years, then all of a sudden you can see, well, annual planning becomes really important, right. In stage two. Now, our version of annual planning puts you into stage stage five, right? Because stage one is zero to three months. Stage two is three months to one year. Stage three is one to two, stage four is two to five, right? And stage five is five to 10. And so we believe that every single year we teach, we practice that we should update our three year goals, our one year goals, and then of course have 90 day goals, which we call rocks that help us achieve our one year goals. So if it's the beginning of the year and we're doing annual planning, we will have new three year new one year and new 90 days, and then that one year, and that three year does not change during the year. That is a discipline. So if you're committed to having a really strong three year and a really strong one year, right? Then, you know, then you can really focus during the year on quarter one rocks, quarter two, quarter three, quarter four. Now, the reality is, is that every now and then you get into the year in the first quarter, and you may want to change a little bit of your annual goals, right? But you, one of the ways, you know, your pretty damn good leadership team is if you don't change your annual goals and, and, and you deliver on them consistently every single year, you hit plus or minus, you know, 80 to 90% of your annual goals.

Cole Abbott (00:03:09 -> 00:03:22)

And in that sense, it's really just a discipline. You, like, there's a bunch of shiny objects on that, on that path during that year, but you have to stay on the right thing. And then when we get to the end of the year right, we will, we can review and adjust Yeah.

Mark Abbott (00:03:22 -> 00:03:22)

The big

Cole Abbott (00:03:22 -> 00:03:26)

Picture. But it's like, we're not gonna be doing this every single day.

Mark Abbott (00:03:26 -> 00:04:29)

Yeah. And so, you know, it gets down. So if you, if you buy into this context, and by the way, you know, we're pretty, you know, we're not, these, these aren't theories. These are, these are things that we know, these are things I know having invested in a hundred companies, these are things I know having coached a hundred plus leadership teams, right. If you buy into this Right. Then it's really about the, whether it's the founder, the CEO, the visionary who's ever the, the grand poah, right? That's a word. That's a word. Yeah. You know, ultimately, you know, you're really, really, you're doing a decent job as a leader if the leadership skills and disciplines that you have are appropriate for the stage of development that you're in. Right. So, if you've gotten to the place where you're a stage three company, or a four company, or a five company, annual planning is just, it's, it's a core discipline. It's not even a, there's not even a debate around this.

Cole Abbott (00:04:29 -> 00:04:32)

Well, if you don't make it a discipline, then you're not gonna get there. Yeah.

Mark Abbott (00:04:33 -> 00:05:25)

Right? So it's just a question of if you as an example, game, if, if you're a founder or CEO or a visionary and, you know, you don't like buy into annual planning, right? Then, you know, what I can tell you is you are going to suffer so much more frustration and dissonance and grinding than you would have if you just got your act together in terms of having a big picture vision that everybody's aligned around, including your compelling audacious goals 10 years out is typical. And then, you know, work your three year, work your one year, every single year you update it and just march. Right. It's the difference between scalers and scalers, I always say, right. Just ha get aligned. Get everybody aligned. And March

Cole Abbott (00:05:25 -> 00:05:26)

90 days at a time, 90

Mark Abbott (00:05:26 -> 00:05:28)

Days at a time, well done.

Cole Abbott (00:05:28 -> 00:05:42)

Yes. It's, there's a reason for that. Number <laugh> and Yeah. Whatever. Uh, so working through the stages. Yeah. At what stage do you, does this need to be a core discipline?

Mark Abbott (00:05:43 -> 00:06:04)

Well, like I said earlier, um, it needs to start turning into a core discipline during stage three. It's, it, it doesn't have to be there in stage four and stage five, but once again, you're just wasting so much effort and energy if you're not doing it in stage fours and stage fives.

Cole Abbott (00:06:04 -> 00:06:26)

I, I, like I said, I don't think you're get to stage five if you're not annual planning. And I also think there's a, a value in annual planning on the personal level. Yeah. Right. And there's a, something we could go off on, on that, but basically it's just if, if you want to really maximize your, your growth and your direction, whether it's you as a person or a company of a thousand people, yeah.

Mark Abbott (00:06:26 -> 00:06:27)

It's

Cole Abbott (00:06:27 -> 00:06:38)

A essential component. Reviewing the lessons of the past year. Yes. Understanding where you are Yes. At that point in time. And then what you need to adjust and look forward to going forward.

Mark Abbott (00:06:39 -> 00:07:14)

Comment I would make is on the word choices just now, right. So it, it, once you get to stage four and five, and even in three, it's no longer about you. Yeah. Right? It's about everybody in the organization being focused, aligned, and thriving. Right. So we owe it to our company and we owe it to our senior leadership team. Right. To all work together to get on the same page in terms of where we are, where we're going, and how we're gonna get from here to there.

Cole Abbott (00:07:14 -> 00:07:26)

And would you say that starts at the right? I I think that there's a little bit of a, a cascade there. Yeah. And Right. The leaders need to understand this thoroughly and then the benefits of that ripple throughout the company. Yes.

Mark Abbott (00:07:27 -> 00:07:28)

Yeah. So, right.

Cole Abbott (00:07:28 -> 00:08:04)

So going back, it's not about you. Well, ideally, even if you're doing it on the personal level, it's not about you, it's about how your role within the system at large. Yes. Right. Because if you are a more clear headed leader, then you are better able to help your team. So I don't want to <laugh> just go off on that tangent. Yeah. But it was just something I was, I was thinking about, because I feel like we getting to that point, uh, and I, I think Chris Williamson has a good annual review template somewhere, um, which is just a side note. We'll post

Mark Abbott (00:08:04 -> 00:08:05)

That as a link

Cole Abbott (00:08:06 -> 00:08:18)

If I can find it. <laugh>. Okay. Sure. So on the stages front, right? You're getting into stage three now. Yes. What is that annual planning process system? What does that look like?

Mark Abbott (00:08:18 -> 00:10:08)

By the time we get into stage three, obviously in four, in, in four and five, we have a, we have a leadership team around us, right? Uh, what you want to do is, is, is, is get that leadership team together and decide what our priorities are gonna be. Once again, really it's stage four. I'm more comfortable like leaning into, because in stage three, you're just, you're just at the one to two years. And so in theory, right, it's just an annual plan. You just need to work on your one year goals and stage three and your 90 day, right? We obviously are trying to help people get to stage five, right? Stage four is where I've got, you know, the, you've got the leader and you've got departments, right? And, and, and you are working on a, on a three year, and you're working a new three year. So you're updating your three year. So obviously this year, our three year ended in 26. Next year it's gonna end in 27, right? Our one year ended in 24. Obviously next year it'll end in 25. So get the senior leadership team together and, and take a look at everything that you have that makes sure that everybody's on the same page. And we like to have, um, you know, in our system, we have a, a vision page, and then we have a gold page, right? In EOS, they have the vision traction organizer, right? Which is similar to ours, but different in, in structure, but has the same thing, right? Make sure the vision stuff all is still makes sense. And then work on your goals. So in the annual planning, planning process, we get our team together, make sure the vision stuff still makes sense. In particular, the forever agreements, right? Do our core values still resonate? Are the words working super well for us? We tweaked our words again, you know, just, just this last quarter just a little bit, right? But

Cole Abbott (00:10:08 -> 00:10:15)

We're going into a process of better defining, refining them too. Yeah. Based on the feedback, based on what we've seen Yeah. Throughout the organization and yeah.

Mark Abbott (00:10:15 -> 00:10:17)

What we yeah. Know about

Cole Abbott (00:10:17 -> 00:10:19)

The psychological implications

Mark Abbott (00:10:20 -> 00:13:20)

Of those words. Yeah. So every single year, right? And, and I, I, we do it, I do it every single core with my clients, and we do it as a, as a company, right? We check in on the forever agreements. Are they still as perfectly worded as possible? Um, so check in on those forever agreements, make sure they're perfectly worded vision, I mean, your core values, your compelling value proposition, the definition of your ICP, and, um, the definition of your compelling why. So check in on those things. Then check in on more details around the, the compelling value proposition and the ICP. Just make sure those definitions are strong, um, and they still make sense. And usually there's a little tweaking that comes, comes in. And then get those things goes, make sure those things are in good place. Then you go in and update your three year your, your three year goals. Um, and there's a big conversation around that. And, and by the way, you look at your compelling and audacious long-term goals, right? Are they, do those still make sense? So, so I forgot to mention that. So do those still make sense? Do we want to tweak them at all If they're, if they still make sense, okay, so we're one year closer to those. Um, what do we need to be working on something over, you know, within the next three years to get us closer? So that's a thing that conversation you have in terms of your three year goals. So, and the three year goals are not just the revenues and your profit margins or your enterprise value, or a couple other specific KPIs that really make sense, right? There are also a list of things that you would love to see materialize within three years for us, you know, it's some new tools that we wanna put out into the world. As an example, it's a new strategic partners, it's new publications. There's, you know, we have a list of about 15 things, but you want update that. And a lot of times what'll happen is what we do is we'll have, um, we'll, because we don't do two year, we'll have stuff that's for three years and we'll have stuff for, that's for two years, right? That's in there. And so what'll happen is maybe those two years turn into one year goal, move over to our one year goals, um, and then there's some new stuff that's put in there. And sometimes there's things that we've already achieved that were part of our three year goals. And so we just check that off. But the point is, we work on our three years and we update them, and then we work on our one years, and as we talked about earlier, then we work on our 90, uh, day goals or our rocks and make sure we're all on the same page. We also like to do SWOT every during our annual process. So, strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats and strength and weaknesses are internally looking and opportunities and threats are externally looking. But we, we encourage people to at least once a year do a swot. And so we'll do that as a part of the process. We will do that as a part of the process before we actually set our three year and our, our new three year and our new, new one year, and obviously our, our new rocks.

Cole Abbott (00:13:20 -> 00:13:30)

So with all those pieces, what is the order of execution of those things, right? Yeah. You said SWAT analysis comes before the setting tools. Yeah.

Mark Abbott (00:13:30 -> 00:16:33)

So, so classic meeting structure, forgetting about us for a second, but what we teach right, is, is you, is you get together for you, you typically have two days for your annual meeting. Um, the first day is focusing on starts with, okay, so how are we doing? Right? Just checking in personal and professional, you know, the best from the last year. What, what are the three cool things that took place in the last year on the professional side? What's something really cool that took place, um, in the last year? On the personal side? Uh, then we like to talk about, you know, what's working and what's not working. Um, and of course, we do expectations. And then, you know, the first thing we do is we review how we just did for the quarter, and then we review how we did for the year, and then we grade that. And this is during the first day. And then we like to invest in, and a lot of different, um, uh, coaching organizations in their methodologies. They encourage investing in, um, what we call trust builders. So the trust building exercises, there's a lot of different ones out there. Um, but we spend, um, typically three plus hours in the first day of an annual, um, planning, uh, meeting recession. Um, we spend the first, we spend three hours doing trust. Um, so usually it's a couple different exercises, but at the core, it's all about better understanding one another. It's about building vulnerability. It's about seeing, you know, just really connecting as human beings mean deeply connecting as human beings. Um, I just conducted a, a session yesterday for one of my clients around trust, you know, in terms of the three, three dimensions, uh, character, competency and connection. And we literally sat there and we went through, okay, so character wise, we're all good competency wise, we're all good on the connections front. How are we doing? And we had the, the, the 12 sort of classic categories that are associated with connections based trust up on the board. And we went through each person and we talked about where they could be a little bit stronger in terms of each of those, each of those, um, 12 dimensions. And it was, it was scary and cool. And we spent probably, you know, an hour and a half doing it. It was a team of five, but, uh, but everybody gave it a 10 out of 10. So, uh, so that's the, that's a, that's a big part of the first day. And then, um, I like to do the, the SWAT next. Um, and then if you have time, you know, what we do is, uh, is we have a thing called key topics. So these are things that we think we need to talk about before we start to work on updating the three years and the one year and the 90 that ends up being a full day right there, and that's day one. And so, you know, we, we, we, we believe it takes two days to do a great annual planning session, but I'll stop there. Well, then what's, what,

Cole Abbott (00:16:33 -> 00:16:42)

What's day two <laugh>? It's like, oh, now, screw that. All right, let's talk about the, the, the cubs. Here's a message for respond. Now, what's d What's day two? <laugh>?

Mark Abbott (00:16:43 -> 00:16:44)

Hi. Um,

Cole Abbott (00:16:44 -> 00:16:47)

Little fourth wall break there. Yeah, I have one of those <laugh>,

Mark Abbott (00:16:48 -> 00:16:51)

Uh, day two. So day

Mark Abbott (00:16:51 -> 00:17:25)

Two, we review what we did on day one. Um, in particular, as an example, was there anything that came out of day one that was, you know, worth writing down and or a, after you got done by, by the way, at the end of day one, you, I love our, everybody going out and having a dinner, having a wonderful meal. That's a very important thing for me personally. Um, and I encourage it for all teams, right? Teams gotta, you gotta, you gotta love working with one another and, and, and going out and having a, a great meal, um, um, and enjoying being with one another as part of that. So

Mark Abbott (00:17:26 -> 00:17:27)

You start off day two,

Mark Abbott (00:17:28 -> 00:20:50)

You know, uh, you know, what, what do you highlights from yesterday? Anything important that we should be adding to our issues listed to discuss during this day? Um, and then, uh, getting into, um, if there were any key topics. Maybe you, you know, maybe you still had some stuff to, to work on at the end of the day, um, during day one, at the end of day one. And so hit the key topics, but then get into, okay, so let's all get on the same page in terms of updating our, our three year goals. And that's a very collaborative session. And then it's moved to that. Okay? Now, what are our one year goals? Given our three year goals, once again, a very collaborative session. I like to have one year goals of less than seven or less. The more goals you have, the less likely it is you're gonna hit 'em. All the less focused you're gonna be able to be on at any given goal. Yeah. Yeah. And so, get everybody, uh, aligned around that. Um, what I find is that, uh, it personally, and we do this in the software for pe, you know, people, the ability to do this in the software, but when you have your three year goals and your one year goals, you know, you have a title of the goal, you know, to launch x, y, Z as an example. But then in the descriptions, I, I like to open it up and get into the deri descriptions and make bloody sure we are all on the same page, that we know what we're talking about. 'cause I can't tell you how many times over the years where people like, I don't remember, you know, how do we know we hit it? Right? What's the, what is, what is the, you know, make it smart, right? What specifically has to happen? And, um, and the more notes, the better. Because the reality is everybody forgets this shit. Especially when you have a year between Yeah. Reviews. Yeah. Everybody forgets it, right? And so, so it's, so I can't tell you, I mean, just yesterday, like I said, I had a client session and we went into the goals. And three year we went in a couple, three years. We went into a lot of one years and we opened it up. 'cause we had to remember what the heck we all agreed to. So get really specific on your one year goals and your three year goals. What does it mean? Right? Okay. So we got this description. What does it mean to have it, have achieved it? Do the same thing on your one year goals. Make sure that if we hit these one year goals, we feel as a team, we're on track to hit our three year goals. And of course, our three year goals, when we're reviewing those, we say, okay, are we on track to hit our compelling audacious goals? Um, you know, so for us, for like 2030, all right, is this gonna help us feel like we are still on track for hitting our 2030 goals when we hit, if we achieve these 20, 27 goals, and then, um, which are three years that we'll have next year. And then once we get done with the one year goals, okay, are we now gonna be on track to hit our three year goals? And then you go into the 90 day rocks and goals, right? And say, okay, so what do we gotta do this quarter, this next 90 days in order to feel like we are absolutely on track to hit our goals for the year? So is that day two, no, <laugh>? So we've gone through all of that, and now we'll still have a bunch of issues. And so, you know, we'll have this list of issues left, and then we'll go through those issues, right? And then that will be be the, basically there's a conclude obviously at the end of the day too. And

Cole Abbott (00:20:50 -> 00:20:52)

The significance of the conclude is,

Mark Abbott (00:20:53 -> 00:21:46)

The significance of the conclude is when you, when you checked in, you had you, you had these expectations. Did we meet our expectations? Do we feel like we, the time together was super productive? Do we feel like we achieved everything we wanted to achieve? Do we feel like the conversations that we had were healthy? Do we feel like the meeting was both efficient and effective? And if the answer is, we met all of our collective expectations, the meeting was efficient and effective, it deserves a 10, right? So we say on a scale of one to 10, how did we do? So? I tend to have, I tend to have my concludes with, alright, so, uh, you know, how are you feeling? Where's your head? Did we meet the expectations for the, for the two days? And on a scale of one to 10, how did we do? And if it's less than a nine, you need to help us understand what we could have done better as a learning organization. Yeah.

Cole Abbott (00:21:46 -> 00:22:36)

It's important to have that review, especially with so many moving pieces across those two days. Yeah. Do you think, right. Seems like day one is basically establishing and refreshing the context of the whole session Yes. And greasing the wheels that on day two you are primed to execute Yes. On those plans. Do you think there is value in splitting those up into two different days? Right. Having everything basically teed up on day one and then having a nice meal, nice communal thing, right? I think eating together is one of the, one of those primal bonding experiences. Yeah. Very important. Yeah. And then sleeping on that. Yeah. And then going into day two with all of that sort of sorted in your subconscious.

Mark Abbott (00:22:36 -> 00:23:35)

Yeah. Yeah. So, you know, when you say all that, it's sort of the forever agreements, it, the compelling audacious goals, it's, uh, the swo to help us. And I, and I, I didn't go into SWAT as much as I should have, right? Given what we're talking about right now. So when we get, when we get done with the swo strengths, weaknesses, like I said, internally, focused opportunities and threat, externally focused, we review them all and we decide on a case by case as we literally go down, let's say have, let's say have seven, seven in each of those four boxes, right? Go through every single one of them and say, okay, is there an issue here that we need to think about addressing within the next year? And by the way, strengths as an example. You, you know, you may say, well, why, why are you looking at strengths? Well, it's like, no, 'cause either maybe there's an issue where we're gonna start to like have that strength lesson or we know, given everything that's going on in the world, we gotta get even stronger at this. Right?

Cole Abbott (00:23:36 -> 00:23:41)

You lean in and you don't want any, you don't want your strengths to atrophy, but then there are some that you have to exploit.

Mark Abbott (00:23:42 -> 00:27:03)

Yes. Yeah. Um, whole anti-fragile conversation, right? But, but, um, but yeah. So you go through all the strengths go, go one by one, right? Is there, is there something here that we need to be thinking about over the next year? And if it is you put it on your long-term issues list, it may end up being a thing that you turn into a one year goal. It may be something you turn into a, a rock, right? Something you're gonna focus on over the next 90 days. Or it could be something that you're gonna focus on in Q2 or Q3 or Q4 the next year when you add it to the long term issue list or you're adding as an issue or a Q topic, you're adding it as, uh, you could add it as either a key topic or the, we put all the key topics and the long-term issues on the long-term issues list at in our software, right? Someday maybe we'll actually have a key topics list, pros and cons. Less is more until it's not. So I think it fits fine there. We we have a work around that makes it for equal. Yeah. We, we, I I personally just put kt, right? And then colon, and then the name of the, of, of, of the, the title, right? Um, and then I, I turn that into a three. The fives are one years and the fours are, are the goals for the next quarter. Threes are the key topics. Twos are issues we're gonna talk about, right? And then ones are things we're not gonna worry about during the next quarter. Just the reservoir of things. Yeah. Right? So, but there's a, there's a, there's a very specific way of structuring this so that it's easy to get through everything. So, um, so you throw, you, you can throw a KT in front of it and you, and, and then when you go to hit the K key topic section, you just go into the search in the long-term issues list. This is a 90 hand help it, I'm sorry. And I just type KT in there and just shows all the kts. And so we work through those right there. And they can become, they could become a three year, they could become a one year, they could become a 90, or we end up calling it a long-term issue that we're not gonna worry about during the next 90 days. Um, and even in the title, what I tend to do is like, I'll put like, open parenthetical QQQ letter Q2, right? This is the thing we should tackle in Q2, Q3, Q4, et cetera. So, um, you know, we obviously have a relatively sophisticated system in our heads for doing all this stuff, but when I come out of, when we come out of the, the annual, at the end of the day too, you wanna feel like, you know, everything is like properly organized. And we understand like, yeah, we not only understand the one year, we not only understand the next 90 days, but we actually even have a sense for what we're gonna want to do in Q2 Q3, right? We're to the point now where we are actively discussing not just the next year, but, and not just the next 90 days. Those are the easy and obvious things, right? But we're even, okay, this is, this is what we gotta worry about in, you know, 90 to 180 days, this is what we wanna worry about in 180 to 270 days. I, I think these days we're kind of planning, you know, plus or minus very serious around the year, very serious around the next 90 days. And a pretty decent understanding of actually, you know, two quarters out and three quarters out.

Cole Abbott (00:27:03 -> 00:27:14)

I think if you're doing right, I wanna get from here to there. Yeah. And your next nine days is like, what's the first step I'm gonna take in getting there? Yeah. You got, you have a decent sense of what the subsequent steps are. Yeah.

Mark Abbott (00:27:14 -> 00:27:15)

You

Cole Abbott (00:27:15 -> 00:27:26)

Probably should if you are able to. Yes. But the most important thing is doing where you have to go and then taking a step in the right direction. Yeah. Uh, and then through practice you'll get better at those subsequent steps.

Mark Abbott (00:27:26 -> 00:27:53)

Yeah. And how do you know how you're doing? So, um, you know, it's funny, IIII think about karma a lot. For those of you who watch this stuff, uh, a lot, you'll know that, um, so there's a, there's a, there's a, you know, there's a part of me that hesitates to say this, but we've hit 90% of our rocks for years now, quarter after quarter after

Cole Abbott (00:27:53 -> 00:27:54)

Quarter after quarter.

Mark Abbott (00:27:55 -> 00:29:00)

So I think one of the ways, you know, you and your senior leadership team are doing reasonably well is you're hitting plus or minus 90% now, you know, EOS right? That coaching organization teaches you, you should celebrate 80%. And as we've talked about before, 85% is actually like, if you wanted to be perfect, right? Because you got about 5% failure rate, which is 15%, right? Which is, which is optimal for learning research says, um, so, you know, 85, 90%, you know, um, I, you know, we're very proud of, we just hit 90 this this last quarter. I mean, first time I think we were right, like right at 90%, but we hit 90% of that, and that was 72 rocks. We hit nine. We literally hit 90% of them. And so, you know how you, you know, the way you know you're doing a decent job of planning is, you know, you're hitting your goals and you're hitting 90% of your rocks. Now the reality is we've been less just being open about it all. We have been less successful at hitting our goals than we have hit at a hitting our rocks. And I'm at peace with that. Right.

Cole Abbott (00:29:00 -> 00:29:08)

Do you think that that's a natural, not law is not the right word, but the more likely situation? No.

Mark Abbott (00:29:09 -> 00:29:09)

'cause you have

Cole Abbott (00:29:09 -> 00:29:11)

Annual goals are basically the compounding of rocks.

Mark Abbott (00:29:12 -> 00:30:15)

I, I, I think it's the nature of our business, honestly. Um, you know, it's the nature of our relationships. It's the nature of the marketplace. It's the, it's buried. It's the growth. It's very dynamic, right? And, um, and, and, and when we miss, it's not that we had a goal that we shouldn't have had, it's just that, you know, shit happens. And, um, and we couldn't, we couldn't hit that goal. Now, you know, there've been times when we didn't hit a goal that was like, it was on me as the leader, right? Because I didn't make darn sure that my direct reports were talking to one another and making sure that they were all on the same page in terms of what it was gonna take. So we had one time as an example, where a very serious, very specific goal for the year was not hit. And, um, you know, I could blame it on the individual who owned that goal, but then, then what happened is he blamed it on other people not doing what they needed to do in order for him to hit that goal. And, um, you know, part of me is like, shame on me. Part of me is like, shame on him. A

Cole Abbott (00:30:15 -> 00:30:17)

Little accountability chain there. Yeah.

Mark Abbott (00:30:17 -> 00:30:23)

Yeah. Yeah. And, um, so that happened once, you know, you learn. Yeah.

Cole Abbott (00:30:24 -> 00:30:52)

Do you think, so I started this whole thing talking about stage three, but Yeah. Doesn't matter, right? Going from, how do you think that this whole process changes, you know, stage four, stage five, uh, you're adding in different elements. You have to reconsider certain things aside from how far out you're looking right. To one to, you know, five to 10 years. Yeah. Uh, obviously that's a component, right? And in terms of the vision aspect of this different stages. Yeah.

Mark Abbott (00:30:52 -> 00:32:14)

So, yeah. So yes, the answer obviously is, is, is as the organization evolves, um, not just in terms of the stages, but what I would say in terms of the core competencies associated with being great in the stage, you're in, being great in terms of damn good, if not great leaders and company builders and scalers, right? You know, first things first is you gotta get the senior leadership team to do this stuff. Well, second thing is, then you, what you start to cascade down is you need to get your departments to do it well. Right? Then ultimately you need to get, you want to get your teams to do it well. And finally, isn't it amazing if we can have all of our individuals doing this? Well, as you were talking about earlier with regard to Williamson, and, you know, I would love for everybody in this company to have a one, one year goals, right? And, um, and to have the confidence and competence and clarity and comfort try to get all C's, right? That being really good at making plans and seeing them come to fruition provides. Yeah.

Cole Abbott (00:32:14 -> 00:32:21)

I, I, 'cause I, I think that there are significant second order benefits to everyone really understanding this as a process Yeah. And appreciating

Mark Abbott (00:32:21 -> 00:32:22)

It. Yeah.

Cole Abbott (00:32:22 -> 00:32:35)

Uh, rather just being like, oh, here's some boxes I have to check. Because I think a lot of people kind of view it that way, but I think that's also the nature of how the perspective a lot of people take when it comes to work.

Mark Abbott (00:32:35 -> 00:36:17)

Yeah. Well, obviously that's a thing we're working on, right? Trying to help people really understand building a company, you know, whether it's a damn good or a great company, you know, where everybody just genuinely loves the work they're doing and cares about the work they're doing, and cares about the, all the ideal stakeholders and is cares enough to have hard conversations, cares enough to be kind, not nice. Right? And feels like this journey is, it's, it's a, it's a, it's a win, win, win, win, win, win, win, right? For everybody. That's where you want to get to. And we, we know this is not normal, right? That's part of why I started the company. This is not normal. And it's complicated. Yes. Or it's hard, I should say, without question. It's not complicated. The things that we need to do to get everybody marching 90 days at a time, understanding why they're doing, where they're going, where it's gonna be in three years, where it's gonna be in 7, 8, 9, 10 years. Why we do with the work we do, why, what, why our forever agreements exist. Respecting our forever agreements, honoring them, living up to, you know, all of our agreements. You know, ultimately when you get this working really, really well, you can just, you know, you, you, you can do really, really amazing work. And people like genuinely lo love being a part of the organization. This is, like I said, it's not complicated. It is. It, it ha it is hard. But ultimately, you know, the thing we haven't talked about is after we do all this work, right? Then we need to have a state of the company meeting and share all this, right? Share the, share how we did in the last 90 days, share how we did for the year, share if we changed anything that's associated with our, with our vision. Did we, did we modify any of our forever agreements? Did we update our compelling audacious goals? And then share the new three years and explain, right, well, why we changed things, or why we got added things, or why we got rid of things. Right? And of course, take questions all along the way, then share the one year, right? And, um, and then share the 90 days. And then depending upon how sophisticated you are, you may or may not have already begun the work of cascading. Okay. If this is, if this is, this is company stuff, here's what the departments have to work on. So you, you know, in our company, by the time we have the state of the company, actually almost every department and every team will have already seen that information under and, and talked about, okay, so what do we need to do? Right? Um, and so as you, as the organization evolves, you get into stages. There's not just stages of development, but there's basically stages of sophistication, right? And so, you know, as an example, I like to have the departments have two year goals, one year goals, and of course, 90 day. And then I like to have the teams have one year goals and 90, and then the individuals just have 90. Now, personally, if they want to take on one year goals, I love that. Personal goals, right? But ultimately that's what you want to do, is you want to just get everybody on the same page, understanding where we're all going as the company, where their department's going, where their team's going, and then to feel good about how they participate and where they're going.

Cole Abbott (00:36:18 -> 00:36:25)

So within, you have the team specific sessions that are, that come out of the leadership session? Well,

Mark Abbott (00:36:26 -> 00:36:34)

Actually you have, you have the, the, the senior leadership team. So at our company, right? We have a c-suite slash session, then we have a senior leadership team. So we go from,

Cole Abbott (00:36:34 -> 00:36:36)

Which includes the C-suite, which

Mark Abbott (00:36:36 -> 00:37:04)

Includes the c-suite, right? So, so we go from a two layer, me and my direct reports to three layer me my direct reports and all their direct reports, right? So we get all on the same page, then they go away and each of those departments gets their leader, senior leadership teams together. Right? And so that means that the departments and the team leaders are together, right? And that's how we cascade down the goals Yes. And the rocks.

Cole Abbott (00:37:04 -> 00:37:39)

Yeah. And, but those are more specific on the execution front. And then we have the state of the company thing. Yes. Which is more of a broad, big picture. Yeah. Uh, what's the context? And then connecting the specific roles and responsibilities there. Not from a, your typical roles and responsibilities, but your roles and responsibilities with the, the objectives of this piece this quarter. Yeah. Uh, and how that fits into the rest of the thing. You know, do you think, what do you, do you think it's necessary for companies out there to have both of those pieces,

Mark Abbott (00:37:41 -> 00:38:17)

The planning and the state of the company sharing? Yeah. Yes. And I think we've talked about this in prior, prior podcasts. Um, I, I don't care what generation you're from, we all wanna understand what the heck's important, why we're doing the things that we, we do. The thing I think the millennials and the Gen Zs are more like, this is really super important to me. I wanna understand, I want the context. Just I, my personality is never liked. Just do it because I told you to. Right. So I think I've been aligned, um, generation generally,

Cole Abbott (00:38:18 -> 00:38:19)

Generationally.

Mark Abbott (00:38:19 -> 00:38:54)

Generationally. Generationally. Yes. Thank you. There's a word. Yeah. That's a word. Generat generationally, um, for a long time. But, you know, we owe it to everybody so they, they get it. And of course that means that the state of the company includes a genuine amount of time to asking questions. Why are, you know, why, you know, why didn't we hit this? Why'd we change this? Why'd we add this? And so it's like, okay. Um, and then 'cause ultimately you want them to understand how they contribute, you know, how they matter Right. Within the company.

Cole Abbott (00:38:55 -> 00:39:10)

In a way we're bookending this very long process. Not very, it's a pretty long process. I mean, how many four, let's say, is SLT member. Yeah. How many days are you in this process of annual planning?

Mark Abbott (00:39:10 -> 00:39:11)

Yeah. Right. Because

Cole Abbott (00:39:11 -> 00:39:23)

You, you got the, well, the C-suite thing. Yeah. So there's the setting up everything, swat key topics, day one and day two. Yeah. Then taking that and doing it with your team and overseeing the, the various, so

Mark Abbott (00:39:23 -> 00:40:15)

Let, let, so let's go with, um, me, right? And my direct reports, right? The c-suite, we, we we're in three days of annual planning. This, our department heads are in two days of annual planning just right to begin it all. And then they go away and they typically have anywhere from a half day to a full day with their teams. Right? So I'm in three days. SLT is typically in three days. Right? And then you have other people who are typically in a half to one day because of the way you cascade it down. And that's excluding the state of the company. And the state of the company on an annual basis is usually a couple hours. So it's a,

Cole Abbott (00:40:15 -> 00:40:16)

It's six days. It's

Mark Abbott (00:40:16 -> 00:40:16)

A real process

Cole Abbott (00:40:17 -> 00:40:21)

Across the thing is about six days, right? Yeah. Yeah. Obviously nobody's really involved in more than

Mark Abbott (00:40:22 -> 00:40:22)

Four.

Cole Abbott (00:40:23 -> 00:41:22)

Yes. But within those six days, you're starting the whole process off with, uh, trust context, make, getting questions, getting clarification, establishing that context. Yeah. Which is the key topics. It's like there's a little element of uncertainty, and I want that either answered or acknowledged. Sometimes it's just I need something stupid clarified. Yeah. Or it's someone make sure that this is in the long-term issues. And then we're wrapping it all up with that context, repackaged and answering the questions, which is another exercise in Right. In trust because we're sharing a lot of things that are sometimes very sensitive. Yes. Uh, in the state of the company. Yep. And do you think it's essential to have this whole six days and all this work be bookended and, and packaged within the framing and, uh, you know, the significance of trust?

Mark Abbott (00:41:23 -> 00:41:42)

Yeah. Yeah. Um, and by the way, it's even longer than six days too, right? Because, uh, 'cause what'll happen is, especially in the first couple of weeks, people will be like, ah, like they're talking to one another and say, I can't do all that. Right? I got this. You want that. And so there's, so just,

Cole Abbott (00:41:42 -> 00:41:44)

Hopefully they're doing that <laugh>, that's a good thing.

Mark Abbott (00:41:44 -> 00:42:43)

It's a good thing. But just to have a sense, I mean, it's, it's a couple week process and it just is what it is. And you can try not to have it, but it's slow is smooth, smooth is fast. If you do this really, really well, you're gonna end up, our experience suggests, my experience as a coach suggest that you're gonna end up, you know, that year is gonna be so much more efficient and the progress is going to be b um, real and positive. Right. I saw something posted the other day by, uh, an EOS coach, and he was really happy that, um, his client rated, I think it was either the year or a quarter an a and it was one of the first times after many, many, many sessions he's had that I once again, don't mean to be the karma guy. Right. And, and, but you know, my clients are consistently hitting a's and a minuses every quarter, every year because they're, they're disciplined.

Cole Abbott (00:42:44 -> 00:43:35)

You say karma, but it's basically s it's a little bit of sacrificing the present for the future. Yes. 'cause it's like we're giving up two weeks. It's gonna be stressful, it's gonna be intense. We're gonna have hard conversations. Yes. But that's crucial to having a successful year. Yeah. And on the coaching end, it's important that you have this very well understood as a practice. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. And you have experience here. You have that wisdom that you can bring into the other, right. Into the companies you're coaching. Right. And right. We talk about the the ripple effects Yeah. Of that. So when you are in a coaching situation and there is, you have a client or a company that tends, has, is new to this Yes. Then maybe tends to be a little bit more volatile. Right. Less disciplined. Yeah. In this whole thing. Like, oh, we'll figure it out. We always figure it out. Right? It's like, okay, well you're growing. Right. That's not always gonna work.

Mark Abbott (00:43:35 -> 00:43:35)

Yeah.

Cole Abbott (00:43:36 -> 00:43:53)

Uh, and there's, I'm sure there is a desire to sort of go off the path a little bit. Yeah. 'cause you think that this is the right thing to do in this moment. How do you handle that pushback or variance within, uh, companies? Obviously,

Mark Abbott (00:43:53 -> 00:46:50)

I, I can speak best for me. That's, yeah. Right. Uh, so couple things. First of all, you hired me because you were in pain, right? Um, you hired me because I've been here and done this. You've hired me because you checked my references and I've helped, you know, tens and tens of people go from pain to significant gain, right? I mean, you know, help a company go from no revenues to over a hundred million and 10% EBITDA in like four years kind of a thing. Help people hit billion dollar valuations. Right? You brought me into your world because you trusted my experience and the system, right. And my capabilities. And so guys, right. Trust me on this one. I know what I'm doing. You don't need to be, it's like the conversations we've had or I've talked about before, right? It's not complicated. It's hard. But you don't need to be creating your own tools. You don't need to be creating new disciplines. You don't need to be creating frameworks, right? Focus on doing the things that you need to do to build high trust relationships with all of your customers so that they love you and they have your back and they help you when you get hit in the face. 'cause you're gonna get hit in the face. Can we just focus on Right. Can we, can, can we focus on taking advantage of everything we know as opposed to trying to create new things? Right? And, um, and when those moments do happen, right? This is where, yeah, I get what, let's just say it's the, it's the founder. I, I'm like, right. Doing this to them, and everybody else is watching this. And I'm like, Joe, right. No. Right. We know this stuff. We've proven this stuff. You know, I'm open. I don't want to tell you what to do. You've gotta figure out, you've gotta embrace this for yourself, but is this really the best thing for you to do? Or is trusting the process, trusting the tools, trusting the frameworks. Right? Can we just get back onto that? Because, um, 'cause they work, right? And so, you know, every now and then you'll have those conversations, but as you know, as time progresses, they just like, you know, it becomes, no, I trust you. No, I trust you. No, I trust you. And all of a sudden, you know, yeah. There'll be moments where you're like, you know, hey, let's remember. Right? But for the most part, part, you know, you are that, you know, you're that, um, I, I want to think about like the karate kid, right? You, you know, at some point you've, you've gotta give mgi Yeah. You've gotta, you, you, you, you have to trust. Yeah. Right? And

Cole Abbott (00:46:50 -> 00:46:54)

The trust in that's in that case is you've proven the competency.

Mark Abbott (00:46:54 -> 00:46:55)

Yes. Right?

Cole Abbott (00:46:55 -> 00:46:59)

You have the character. We know that from the reviews and Yeah. The connections, because well, you're there.

Mark Abbott (00:46:59 -> 00:47:00)

Yeah. <laugh>. Yeah.

Cole Abbott (00:47:01 -> 00:47:07)

Um, but the competency part can be in doubt 'cause you haven't proved that tangibly to the client.

Mark Abbott (00:47:07 -> 00:48:40)

Yeah. And so, you know, sometimes, you know, if I think about new clients as an example, sometimes it will take me quarters on end to get them. They like, they like intellectually, but don't emotionally. Right. Sort of trust me and or the process. So it takes, you know, it'll take some quarters sometimes, right? It's just like, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. It's like, no, we're gonna do that. We're gonna do that, we're gonna do that, we're gonna do that. And they embrace it, right? Completely. And they're like, zoom off to the races, right? So I've had some clients get their entire company up running, aligned, you know, from, from the very top, all the way down to the fresh new face, right? They're, they're marching and they're 90% strong across the nine core competencies within 15 months. You know, sometimes it takes, you know, I hear, you know, coaches to get up to, you know, three plus years before you get this whole thing. And we know we have lots of clients who've never Right. The majority of our clients. Right? I, I don't mean to be down on our coaches, right. We love them, but we, the majority of our clients still haven't cascaded the operating system all the way down. And throughout until you get, until you do that, you don't have the magic of it all. Right? But once you do that and, and, and you get everybody on the same page from the top to the fresh new face in the individual contributor level, it's just so much easier to just hit those numbers and, and, and, and feel like you're making progress every single quarter

Cole Abbott (00:48:40 -> 00:48:44)

When you have the whole thing cascaded. Your lever is just way more effective. Ah,

Mark Abbott (00:48:44 -> 00:48:47)

Right. Un uh, it's unbelievable. Right?

Cole Abbott (00:48:47 -> 00:50:06)

I think when you say it's not complicated, it's just hard. Yes. I think all the things that have been built and the things we've learned, they're very complicated. But obviously we in, in doing that work, are standing on the shoulders of giants. Yes. And then we're setting things up so people can stand on our shoulders. Yeah. And so we're doing the burden of synthesizing and distilling all the things that are very complicated. And ideally we're doing that from principle, which is slow and difficult, but robust and helpful for armed standing and also helpful for everyone else in creating things that last. But once we give those tools, those concept tools, disciplines, content to people, and you just have to execute, then it's not complicated. It's just hard. Right. And it, when you do it long enough and you submit to that something, probably not the right word, submit, but you're open to that whole process give over too. Yeah. Open up to it Yeah. And let it do its work. Yes. That's where the magic is. Yeah. And it is still hard. And it's hard because you have to do things and it's hard because it's going to probably reveal some insecurities Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> because you haven't been doing things as well as you thought you were.

Mark Abbott (00:50:06 -> 00:50:06)

Right.

Cole Abbott (00:50:07 -> 00:50:46)

Which is a good thing, right? That means you're learning and you're growing, uh, but it is uncomfortable. So when you are with a client and or you're looking at your clients, whether it's yours or others in the community, uh, of coaches, what is the different, the general difference in success of those who are very accepting, very much like, here's a good plan, or here's the plan, let's run with it, uh, according to the coaches versus those who are more disagreeable and hesitant to just take that leap of faith and really jump into

Mark Abbott (00:50:46 -> 00:51:36)

It. You know, there's no single answer, obviously. Right? So, you know, part of it is, you know, why are things still hard and, um, complicated, right? Why do you feel stuck? Right. Why do you not feel like you're getting, quote unquote, like the traction that feels like you should have by now? Right. And so, you know, sometimes it's, you got a crazy visionary who just can't help themselves and they're constantly throwing, you know, we call 'em non rock rocks in the middle of the quarter as an example. You know, sometimes it's, um, there's, there's just so much change going on in the industry, and so there's just, there's a lot of insecurity in terms of just like the company's reason for being,

Cole Abbott (00:51:36 -> 00:51:40)

And that's more of a uncertainty Yeah. And anxiety if you put an emotion behind it.

Mark Abbott (00:51:40 -> 00:54:13)

Yeah. Right? And, and so there's just, there's, there's, there's freeze brain going on, right? Um, so sometimes you have that going on. Sometimes you have, uh, a leader who is for a whole host of reasons, which we're all guilty of, um, has yet to really build, surround themselves with a great leadership team, right? They're afraid to let someone go. They're afraid to have a hard conversation. They've got, you know, they've got a very, um, it's like they've got a vehicle that has lots of issues with it still. And, you know, maybe it's bad tires, maybe it's a, you know, bad, you know, transmission. What, who it is just, there's some fundamental things that gotta be addressed, right? You know, maybe, you know what, the work they've done isn't great, right? Maybe, you know, they're, they're still scalers, right? They're still trying to figure stuff out. So they're, they're still mucking around with their ICP. They're still mucking around with their compelling value proposition. They still don't have a compelling why that everybody believes in. They're still, there's their culture. They don't walk the talk, right? There's just so many things that can potentially get into creating, um, uh, sort of, uh, making it harder than it needs to be. And then that's why, you know, I deeply believe that, um, whether you use our nine core competencies assessment or you use EOSs org checkup, checkup, getting on the same page in terms of what's working, what's not working in terms of your fundamentals, right? Your fundamental tools and your fundamental disciplines. I deeply believe you gotta look at that every single quarter, right? And we didn't talk about it in the annual, but part of the annual is to stand back and say, Hey, where are we in terms of, you know, the strength of our nine core competencies, you know, is the, is is part of the reason we're struggling still because our process competency is still really weak. Is it? You know, because our vision has weakness. We're, you know, we're, we're collectively giving our vision, you know, a seven outta 10 because we're not on the same page. Right? We don't believe we have a compelling value proposition. We don't believe our ICP is clear, right? We don't believe we're genuinely walking the talk around our compelling why. There's a whole host of things, right? But with the right tools and the right as including the assessments, you can see what, what's, what's working and what's not working. And therefore you are better positioned to focus on what our priorities should be for the next 90 days or the next year, next three years.

Cole Abbott (00:54:13 -> 00:54:23)

Is there anything else you would like to add? You talk about the nine core competencies as a component you have, like on that? Yeah. If you wanna, is there anything that you wanna dive into?

Mark Abbott (00:54:23 -> 00:54:40)

No, I think, um, I just, I, I, I do think that I didn't talk about in the agenda that should have, I should have brought that up as part of day one agenda is to, is to assess where you are in terms of the nine core competencies or the org checkup, if you're running on EOS or some other assessment. If you're running on some other, you know, business operating system, where

Cole Abbott (00:54:40 -> 00:54:41)

Would that slot in?

Mark Abbott (00:54:42 -> 00:55:19)

Um, I would do it after. Uh, it's interesting, right? Um, I think you could throw it in before the, the, the, the, the, the trust exercise session. Or you could throw it in after, but before the swat. There's pros and cons. I think that oftentimes when we go through the assessment, um, you can see disagreements in the, in the room. And so having evidence of disagreements before you go and do the trust work is actually reinforces the need for the trust work. So I'd probably put it in front of the trust work.

Cole Abbott (00:55:19 -> 00:55:20)

That makes sense. Yeah.

Mark Abbott (00:55:20 -> 00:55:21)

Alright.

Cole Abbott (00:55:22 -> 00:55:23)

Annual planning.

Mark Abbott (00:55:23 -> 00:55:24)

Annual planning.

Cole Abbott (00:55:24 -> 00:55:25)

Thank

Mark Abbott (00:55:25 -> 00:55:26)

You. You're welcome. I.