plan is intent of action. You still haven’t done anything yet. Failing to plan is one problem; failing to do anything with the plan is an even bigger problem. It says something about the likely longevity of the business. It takes energy to make things happen. And leadership, and more planning, and tenacity, and administration and, and…

Plans often get lost in translation. There’s lots of pieces to the puzzle but as with any puzzle, there’s better and worse ways of putting the pieces together. Businesses get things done through processes. Whether it is selling a product or providing a service, there is a certain way that activities are completed and the people that perform them are linked and coordinated. Operating procedures, policies, measurement & evaluation, continuous improvement, quality control…

That depends how far you want to go; at Vision to Action we advocate going as far as you need to go to be in control of the business so that you can challenge and change it. Not much further. We’re very aware of the risks of stifling creativity or replacing judgment & relationships with IT systems. And we’re aware of the risks of controls that are put into the wrong hands; we design our processes around the fulfillment of customer needs not the fulfillment of internal egoism.

At Vision to Action we focus on designing processes that are logical and pragmatic and which add value. This means they will be as simple as possible, save time and money by reducing inefficiencies or bottlenecks, and generally make running the business easier. The purpose of these processes is to operationalize the plan; to take the vision to action.