Perfect Planning

Defining a perfect day is a powerful way of getting employees focused so that they can achieve profoundly new performance. This article examines this simple, practical approach to improving performance and helping organizations clarify what needs to happen to prepare for sustained, long-term change. Companies that have succeeded with the perfect-day approach have taken four steps. First, leaders have aligned senior management around a definition and measures of the perfect day. Next, leaders have worked with managers to generate area- and team-level goals that, if met, would produce the desired improvements. The third step is honing in on the workforce behaviours critical to attaining the perfect day. The fourth step is aligning leadership behaviours across the organization to ensure that the right consequences exist to help motivate the desired behaviours.

Focused as they are on long-term strategies and short-term operational plans, leaders often think it’s enough to train people, tell them what to do, and give them some tools — but it isn’t. Decades of research in behavioural science have shown that nothing really changes until behaviour changes, and the right kind of behaviour change doesn’t happen on its own. To achieve sustained performance, leaders often look to the latest trend, methodology or technology. Yet the most effective path to superior execution is simpler. Focus employees on a few key good behaviours, and align the organization around performing them. Over time, as you increase the number of perfect days, you’ll become more skilled at aligning your employees to improve their execution. You’ll come to master what lies at the core of any successful change in an organization’s operations: behaviour.