Flight Planning (Strategic Planning)
The flagship tool of The Jholdas Group is the “Flight Plan Process”, so named because the analogy of a flight plan is appropriate to the way in which the process is carried out. As with a pilot, the company must first select a destination and determine an initial plan in order to get there. Once the company begins the initial implementation of the flight plan, again like a pilot, they must “vector” or adjust their plan to circumstances in order to ensure that they arrive at the final destination. Accordingly, the process involves several phases:
- Pre-Flight Plan Check or Organizational Analysis
- Flight Planning (Planning Session)
- Flight Status Update (Monitoring the Plan)
- Vectoring (Adjustments to the Plan)
- Linkage
The Jholdas Flight Plan Process is different from the traditional strategic planning process led by a consultant in which a notebook is developed at high cost, laid on the shelf and then dusted off prior to the next strategic planning session. The Jholdas Flight Plan is highly interactive, facilitated with your key Leadership Team, and then integrated as part of the day to day operating culture of your company complete with coaching on execution as well as accountability and follow-up. Vectoring enables the plan to be nimble and flexible to meet changing internal and/or external (market) conditions.
Organization Analysis: The first phase is an assessment of your company to understand your company as well as possible in advance of an actual flight planning session. This involves one to one interviews with your Leadership Team as well as reviews of financials, previous plans, values, mission statements and current performance. This includes a SWOT of your firm from the firm’s perspective, a client survey to determine client perspective on performance of our firm, a review of key benchmarks in the industry and how your company relates to them, and a market assessment often performed by your own key people.
Flight Planning Session: This is a one or two day off-site planning session, facilitated by a Jholdas coach, geared to the desired needs of your company and to the depth necessary to establish a solid strategic plan. This session begins by considering and dialoguing over the organizational analysis and from this develops the firm’s values, mission, vision, strategic priorities, major goals and objectives, pivotal strategies and critical success actions for the next quarter. A succinct plan is developed from this session.
Flight Status Update: Leadership status checks are conducted monthly and if desired, individual coaching for leaders is conducted monthly towards the goals.
Vectoring Session: Conducted quarterly with the leadership team to review, validate the objectives, modify based on market or internal conditions, and then brainstorm and evaluate quarterly actions for the next 90 days.
Linkage: The Jholdas Linkage process involves coaching of the Leadership Team to implement a system of goals and objectives in dialogue with each staff member to link individual goals and objectives for their role to the Flight Plan. In this way, every person understands how they contribute to the company’s success and incorporates accountability for all staff members.