Ice Cold Leader

CHAPTER 19Element Four—The Planning Process

When we meet failure in our lives, we become very adept at assigning blame to outside forces. There wasn't enough time, people weren't committed, we didn't have the resources, alien invasion, or it just wasn't meant to be.

Here's the hard truth: Failure comes from one reason and one reason only … bad planning. We fail because we don't cover the consistent and proven elements necessary to achieve success. The ones that give us the right questions to ask, allow our people to work with initiative and autonomy, or allow us to unemotionally prioritize and then methodically execute.

Each element of the leadership process builds on the one before it. We started with Emotional Awareness and Recognition because emotions drive our Actions. Then we moved to Cultural Awareness and Recognition because culture is the sum total of the Actions we take; those Actions ultimately make up our culture. And then, we identified what Actions we want to make up our culture, so we established Guidelines for Behavior that would begin the process of identifying what we would hold people accountable for.

The first three elements of the process allow the leader to create a predictable environment people will love to be a part of. But ultimately, leaders need to drive Mission accomplishment. And to drive Mission accomplishment, leaders need to plan with precision and discipline.

The Planning Process will be broken down into three chapters. This chapter will break ...