All business owners and managers make mistakes. In fact, if no mistakes are made, nothing is being done in the business at all. Literally.
Fear that one's mistakes leads to immediate dismissal simply locks down the company. No one will suggest any new ideas, and will revert to covering the backs and keeping their heads down. Entrepreneurs should welcome innovation and fresh, creative ideas. Forward thinkers and innovators should be rewarded and encouraged to seek new solutions to the organization's problems. Mistakes will be made. The key is to keep the errors small, and to learn from the experience.
An innovative company seeks new approaches to the short and long term challenges facing the business. A leader encourages and supports the creative process and lets the creative process take form and shape. Once a solution is identified, the next step is implementation. Here is where many creative companies fall down. Moving the plan from the drawing board to the real world is often messy, and marked with smudges and crumpled paper.
In many cases, the plan is formulated and handed off to someone in the company with instructions amounting to no more than get to it. Of course, without an implemention direction in place, the best idea can flounder. Planning is a multiple part process, and it doesn't end when the blueprints are drawn up for building the perfect company. As in any building project, the blueprints are only the starting point. There is a lot of hammering to be done after the ink is dry.
After the creative team has set out the concept for the company, the next step in the creative process is a step by step system to make the idea work in practice. For the entrepreneur, this meeting of minds is designed to map out a course of action for the plan. Surprisingly, this crucial step is often missing from many business plans.
One technique for implementation planning is to start at the finish line. Picture the perfect outcome, with phones ringing from customers, sales people closing deals, happy staff taking care of business, and the profits entering everyone's bank accounts.
Examine the process in reverse, in a manner similar to a film running backwards. Follow those customers through their buying cycle, and how they arrived at your doorstep or website. Consider the vital technology that is in place at the end of your movie, and make plans for its acquisition. Count the number of people needed to make the production a success.
As with any plans, things can and usually will go very wrong. Have your team consider every possibility, no matter how remote. Yes, an asteroid could indeed go through your roof, so don't discount anything in the first disaster list. As with any creative endeavour, consider everything, and prune the list later. After your potential derailment list is completed, a second series of creative thoughts is needed. The purpose of this brainstorming session is to create contingency plans for each of the most likely disasters.
It's said that if you fail to plan, you plan to fail.
Creativity goes far in preventing many mistakes from happening in the first place. Creative thinking reduces risk, and boosts your business.
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