When I was growing up there were few things worse than being called a sissy. Guys who complained about hard track workout were labeled sissies. Buddies who hesitated on the edge of the high dive were prodded over the edge with jeers of “don’t be a sissy.” Today I tell clients to stop being sissies when I can see they are just avoiding the hard work.

When managers complain about an employee's performance there are usually two possibilities. Either the employee is letting the manager down or the manager is letting the employee down. Everyone identifies with employees being the problem. Our tendency is to chalk up poor performance to incompetency or laziness. But knowledge workers need the right tools for the job just like everyone else.

There was a time when I turned my nose up at personal trainers and fitness coaches. After all, I was a standout athlete in high school. I went to college on a [very small] athletic scholarship. I had discipline and fortitude and know how in spades. Why in the world would I spend money on a personal trainer? But after turning forty I started to understand something. Discipline and know how don't count for much when weeks turn into months and months turn into years and your goals aren't any closer.

Working for my dad was, how shall I put this... challenging. And as "challenging" as it was for me I can imagine it was even more difficult for him. I was a bull headed 23 year old with definite ideas about how he should run his business. Nearly twenty years later my dad has grown six feet taller and immeasurably wiser. We no longer work together, but I recognize some of our struggles in the clients I work with today. Given my past working relationship with dad family businesses have a special place in my heart. And I see them struggle in ways unique to family businesses. Unless they deal with these issues the jobs of both family and non-family members are at risk.

Years ago I worked in a firm that had no culture. At least that is how I viewed it at the time. It was the middle of a .com boom and magazines like Wired and Business 2.0 talked incessantly about cultures of innovation, cultures of creativity, the culture of the new economy, etc. It was all good, and no one was talking about the darker side of corporate culture. Now the older, wiser me recognizes that in the void of intentional leadership I was experiencing a "default" culture.

Things that are technically possible are not always practically feasible. When I was a kid it was technically possible for me to build an electric door lock out of Legos. However, it was practically impossible since my sister would not stop kicking the door open long enough for me to complete it. I have experienced something similar in the virtual meeting space.

When companies want us to help them put together a strategic plan there are several areas we examine to see if they are ready. One of the biggest is technology. Today the effective use of technology is a table stake in the game of business growth. There are three areas I am primarily concerned with when evaluating a prospective client's use of technology.

A company's prior experience with strategic planning is an important piece of assessing their readiness to become a strategic planning client. The most basic question that can be asked is whether the company has any prior strategic planning experience or not.

I was talking with a new acquaintance this week and we were discussing whether or not he should start his own business. We discussed things like his dissatisfaction with the current situation, the steps that would be required to open his own shop, support from family members, how to keep work in check when it comes to a healthy marriage, and about half a dozen other things. In short, we talked a lot about his readiness to step out on his own.

I will be honest. I am not a big fan of SWOT analysis. But who could blame me? My first introduction to the tool was at a partner retreat. The scene was set. There were two flip charts arranged in the middle of a 3 sided sofa arena. Our facilitator's penmanship was flawless. We broke for coffee and snacks after an hour and started back in again with renewed enthusiasm. But no one knew why we were doing this.

In the course of helping companies with their strategic planning I have come to view the process in one of two ways. When putting together a strategic plan you are either removing roadblocks or building the road. These analogies might seem simplistic, but I think they are useful for a few reasons.

In the 18 years since James Collins and Jerry Porras coined the phrase Big Hairy Audacious Goal most people instantly recognize BHAG as that thing that sets the vision for the organization. BHAG’s are very helpful at keeping companies focused on the long term. They give context to strategic plans and help companies weed through strategies until they find the ones that align with the big picture. They inspire and guide at the same time. In many ways they are the starting point for developing a plan and the ending point when you reset the vision.

When I started a CPA firm years ago I leased space in a mid-rise office building. Every room in our space had big five foot high windows along the exterior wall. One day I picked up a pack of dry erase markers and instantly converted about 30 linear feet of window space into the largest whiteboard I had ever used. I was in love. Over the years clients learned to love the window whiteboards as much as I did. There were a lot of good ideas hatched on those windows. But we had to take pictures of them before it got dark or you couldn’t see what you had put up on the board.

Accountability is incredibly important to execution. Without it great ideas remain ideas. Plans remain plans. Nothing gets checked off the list. No progress is made. Accountability may just be the secret sauce of achievement. On teams where accountability is taken for granted people follow through on their assignments, they show up on time for meetings and their reports are turned in on deadline. Accountable teams will challenge one another. They will call people out. And their relationships will get deeper because of this brashness, not in spite of it. This all sounds pretty good. The hard part is making it happen.

I have been a reader and writer of business plans since my undergraduate days. During that span of nearly 20 years I have become clearer about what a plan should do. I have also come to understand the secret sauce of effective plans. The one page business plan has been around a long time. I have not been able to find out who came up with the concept or coined the phrase. I personally didn't start using it until 4 or 5 years ago. But I have come to rely on it as an important tool in helping businesses realize their vision.

In their book The McKinsey Mind, Ethan Rasel and Paul Friga breakdown the methodologies used by one of the world's most well-known consulting firms. One of the basic building blocks of the McKinsey method is to begin with a hypothesis. Consultants are trained to use a hypothesis to focus their research and analysis early in the engagement.