In the last quarterly session with a client, the team reported record financials in the last 90 days. They exceeded their revenue and profit targets, and they completed over 90 percent of their rocks. By all estimations, they had every reason to celebrate. But when it came time to grade the quarter, they gave it a C+ / B–. Surprised by the low grade, I asked them to explore this a bit. What they discovered has the potential to change their company for years.

Did you know that the most important part of your annual planning session isn't planning? If you're like many companies, your leadership team skips the most critical component of your annual planning. And it negatively impacts your team's creativity and goal setting for the coming year.

Business leaders of entrepreneurial companies are so hard-charging, so busy, and so overwhelmed, that they tend to see only the gaps ahead of them. These are the goals, ideals, and accomplishments they haven't reached yet. When you're feeling overworked from the previous year and start looking at all the gaps you have yet to cover, it can put you into the wrong frame of mind for moving forward.

Two workers in the Operations Department of a company were working one Friday evening to push out a late delivery. One saw a problem about to happen and said to the other, “Look at that! We can’t ship this out. This order is not correct.”

“You’re right,” said the other, “But neither one of us can fix it. Nobody can fix it until Monday. The boss told us to get this shipment out tonight, and we’ll get yelled at if we don’t. Remember what he did the last time something like this happened?”

So out the order went, and in came an angry customer complaint two days later when the order was delivered. And then out went a chunk of the profits from the order because it cost the company three times as much to fix the error than it would have to get it right the first time.

“We are an organic growth company, not an active growth company.”

This is a verbatim quote from a recent client session. While there’s nothing wrong with these words, there is a challenge when relying on “organic” (or passive) growth when you want to double your sales revenue this year.

“Everyone lives by selling something,” according to Robert Louis Stevenson. We are all selling, all the time. We may not see it that way, but we’d benefit by taking a large part of the mystery out of selling. Keep the mystery in place and we don’t meet growth goals. Worse yet, we get into real trouble.

Have you ever said yes to something and then regretted the commitment you made? If so, you’re normal. Saying no is difficult for two primary reasons, which I will share below. But being able to say no is essential in creating the capacity to say yes to, and to be successful at, what is truly important.