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| Be Prepared! |
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| Written by Tom Wall |
| Tuesday, 09 February 2010 06:55 |
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On the weekend that most of the nation watched the Saints win their first Super Bowl, many people throughout our country also celebrated the 100th anniversary of the Boy Scouts of America. Although I was never a Boy Scout, I do know that they have a relatively simple motto, “Be Prepared.” And even though it’s only two words, being prepared is absolutely essential if you expect to accomplish your goals. Now that another NFL season officially came to an end this weekend, every team in the league has already started preparing for next year. And just like the Saints, the other 31 teams need to start over and begin preparations for winning the 45th Lombardi Trophy. Although we don’t have the luxury of an ‘off-season’ where we prepare eight months in order to endure four months of intense action, in a way, winter does provide some ‘down-time’ that allows dairy producers to focus on the overall operations without the distractions that typically come with fieldwork. So what’s it going to take for your team to become world champions this year? Starting from the end and working our way back to the beginning, it’s pretty simple... The desired outcome: Win every day. The method: Execute the plan. The preparation: Train and coach the players. The beginning: Build the team. Too often, we spend more time talking about what has already taken place and little time actually preparing to achieve our desired outcome. Besides discussing the lessons you learned from a previous week, month, or quarter, there’s not much value in dwelling on something that’s already taken place. So when it comes to team meetings, do you find your management team rehashing the past or strategically planning for the future? And as you prepare for what lies ahead, what are you focusing on? Sure, we need to keep our focus on the desired outcome... to ‘win every day’. But it’s actually the entire process that delivers the final outcome. Once you’ve assembled a team you know you can win with, it’s critical that you spend your time and energy training and coaching them on doing their work correctly and consistently. Once your team is prepared to do their work according to the plan, the only thing that remains is great execution. Unfortunately, many organizations don’t spend enough time coaching and preparing their teams to succeed, yet still expect to be successful. Ultimately, it’s easy to talk about wanting to achieve industry benchmarks and reaching certain targets. But how much time and effort to you really invest in doing what it takes to attain these desired results? Have you sought out talented people to be part of your team, or did you just hire the first person who needed a job? Have you spent time training and developing your team, or did you just give them a blank time card and tell them when to show up for their first shift? Have you developed a strategic plan to get your dairy closer to the results you know you can achieve, or do you think your employees should be able to figure it out on their own? The Saints didn’t win Super Bowl 44 because they merely said they wanted to win it. No... they practiced, trained, and prepared day after day. The Saints’ Super Bowl victory came as a result of great coaches and great players working together to execute a great plan. So when you think about the Super Bowl in terms of your operations, what does a championship victory look like at your dairy? And more importantly, what are you doing to prepare your team to get there?
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