“It is not enough to have a good mind; the main thing is to use it well” – René Descartes
This week we continue with a new basic skill: organisation and planning. If we were to point out where mistakes and failures originate in many projects, it would not so much be about poorly-defined objectives and strategies and would be more to do with difficulties in defining and successfully carrying through implementation plans.
Good plans that are well organised result in things getting done on time, make better use of resources and help us anticipate potential problems before they occur. In short, they give us more time to think in the medium and long term, ensuring success.
This skill is of paramount importance in organisations with complex businesses that require the coordination of a large number of people, resources and activities in order to carry out initiatives and plans. At the end of the day, profitability is highly linked to the ability to plan, organise and control necessary resources.
People who have developed this skill know how to:
Establish goals and challenges
Precisely determine the duration and difficulty level of projects
Detail the scope of work, with necessary deadlines
Create timeframes and assign tasks based on resources
Anticipate possible problems and prepare to address them
Measure performance based on results
Evaluate the results achieved
It is also important to point out that an excess of this skill can also be a limiting factor and even prove harmful, leading a person to excessively depend on plans, rules, procedures and structures at the expense of flexibility to adapt to new or unexpected situations.
Experience, context and putting other skills into play –such as the ones we have seen in this episode series including teamwork , achievement of results– are like lighthouses that will help lead us, organised and well-planned, toward our port of destination.
If you would like additional information you can learn more about developing this skill in our Candidate Development Centre.
José Miguel Baeza
ACCIONA Corporate Training Department