REVIEW Greg Spira — Trust The Plan (BOOK)
Greg Spira writes with this matter-of-fact, quietly acerbic style that makes for a surprisingly entertaining read. It’s a nice touch that adds to the already more personable nonfiction subcategory of leadership and business advice. Spira is well-informed, and obviously knows of what he speaks. But he doesn’t allow said expertise to craft a flintier, less humanistic persona.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR: https://gregspira.ca/
He speaks to the reader as if they’re a peer, in an informal, laid back, conversationalist style that makes you feel appreciative of his willingness to keep the rhetoric at a middle tier. The emphatic aspects of the read are when Spira provides personalized examples, willing to make himself fully flesh-and-blood to the reader to explain and surmise advanced corporate and corporate philosophical concepts.
“The question is: On which side of the bridge should business leaders focus their time and attention?” Spira writes. “If business leaders spend all their time executing, they will find themselves in the same situation as SmartCorp. The goals were set, but everyone executed in different ways that satisfied their near-term functional needs.
Leadership teams can’t skip planning and execute their way to achieving long-term goals. They need to connect execution to plans that support the business objectives and will bring an optimal financial result.
They also need a routine process of recalibrating and synchronizing those plans across the organization to adapt to changes in the business environment, both externally and internally. Execution primarily occurs in individual business functions. Planning involves both individual business functions and collaboration across business functions.”
As the titling, Trust The Plan: Demand Management from Business Leaders, suggests — a symbiotic process is in order for a decidedly postmodernist workplace. Gone are the days of viewing hierarchies in the workplace, rather from top to bottom there is a push to make sure everyone feels they are part of a team. They all serve valuable purposes as cogs in a shared goal, in a shared machination.
This means an entire ideological overhaul, including when it comes to the implementation of the age-old fast pace of the rat race psychology and approach. “Keep in mind, success can only truly be achieved when the chance of failure exists,” Spira writes. “In my view, leaders need to get out of the way and let their teams demonstrate their ability to succeed on their own. Planning helps leaders get out of the way. It gives leaders confidence that their teams have the tools to succeed and will ask for help if needed… First, the focus is on what a company’s customers need, not what the company is capable of supplying, Given the definition of demand, the next step is that demand should be planned without being overly concerned about
AMAZON: https://www.amazon.com/Trust-Plan-Management-Business-Leaders/dp/1604271906
whether the products or services can be delivered by the supply organization. Separation of customer demand from supply capability is critical to better serving customers in the most profitable way. It enables the ability to identify gaps between anticipated demand and supply capability — and to resolve those gaps before they become problems or crises. This behavior is a best practice.”
Colin Jordan
