Sustainment Plan- Plan to keep it alive.

This describes how to keep accountabilities up-to-date and focused on business results as circumstances change. As things change, agreements must be adapted, renewed and revitalized.

Positive Consequences

A job is a business bargain between an individual and an organization. To get beyond parent/child or master/servant relationship, effective individuals bargain for what they want, and can realistically expect, through a fair and reasonable exchange.

Step 2: Alignment- Align like a laser

When all members of a workgroup have completed their individual Accountability Agreements as described above, hold an alignment meeting. This process makes difficult issues discussable. Gaps and overlaps in individual accountabilities and goals are resolved and interdependencies and mutual support is agreed upon. At end of an alignment meeting you can revise Accountability Agreements and realign on a regular basis as circumstances change or memories of agreements fade.

Gaining traction for your strategic plan ideally begins with your senior management team. Once you've identified who's accountable, made commitments and aligned this senior group, you can then cascade it down a level at a time. The process of cascading continues until all employees understand what results they are expected to produce and how they are aligned interdependently with rest of company.

Step 3: Achievement Individuals usually experience immediate value from clarity of their business bargain provided by this process. The Alignment of individuals who know what is expected of them and who know what they want in return creates a powerful force for corporate success.

About Accountability/Alignment Process:

The process we've outlined above has been consistently successful with our clients. We've made this process available to public through our books Accountability: getting a grip on results, and Aligned like a laser, and have recently made our online tool (AlignOnline) available to organizations and consultants who wish to use it in their consulting practice. Visit us at www.AlignOnline.com for more articles on Strategic Planning, Accountability, and Alignment and information on our books and online Accountability tool.

Shaun Murphy, Ph.D. and Bruce Klatt, M.A. are senior partners in Murphy Klatt Consulting and authors of Aligned Like a Laser (2004) and Accountability: Getting a Grip on Results (1997). For more information please go to http://www.murphyklatt.com or try their online Accountability Alignment tool at http://www.alignonline.com

Steven, it sounds to me like you're having what I call a "garbage truck moment." That's when pressure of running your business starts getting to you and you begin to question whether entrepreneurial life is right for you. The debts are mounting, your staff is shrinking (or growing), you get that nauseous feeling in pit of your stomach and you find yourself longing for apparent simplicity of driving a garbage truck.

Note to garbage truck drivers: save your hate mail, boys. I know you work very hard and I respect what you do. Without you world would be a very different, very smelly place, indeed.

What's happening to you, Steven, has happened to us all. The stress is causing you to doubt not only your decision to start your own business, but your ability to run it, as well. There's no magic bullet for dealing with stress and you certainly can't eliminate it totally, so you must learn to handle it.

I believe key to handling stress is to first identify source of stress, then formulate a plan to deal with it.

Here's what I do. Take a pencil and paper and list all things that are causing you stress. For each item listed ask yourself: Is there anything I can do about this? Is there anything I can do to change this from being a point of stress to a point of accomplishment? In other words, is this something I have control over?

Stressing over things you can't control is a total waste of time. Tell yourself that you're burning brain cells in vain and mark that item off your list. Some people don't have this ability. Some people are just natural born worriers who are not happy unless they have something to worry about. They revel in worry. They work in worry like a great artist works in paint. Even when things are going great they worry that sky is about to fall. If you are a natural born worrier, Steven, nothing I say will help you handle stress.

Great, now you have something else to worry about.

Next , determine if each point of stress is something that has happened in past, is currently happening, or has not yet - or may never - happen. If stress point is past, there's not much you can do but attempt to rectify situation causing stress. If it's a current problem, formulate a plan to deal with problem and eliminate stress it's causing. And if you're stressing over things that may never happen, remember what Mark Twain said: "I am an old man and have known a great many troubles, but most of them never happened."

Finally, Steven, it's important to remember that working for someone else can be just as stressful as working for yourself. Sure, you don't have stress (and responsibility) associated with running a business, but you will have other stresses that can be far worse; like impossible work deadlines, sales quotas you can't meet, a boss that learned his management skills on a chain gang, coworkers who don't pull their own weight, possible layoffs, etc.

Very few things in life are without stress. Just ask any garbage truck driver.

Here's to your success!

Tim Knox

Small Business Q&A is written by veteran entrepreneur and syndicated columnist, Tim Knox. Tim serves as the president and CEO of three successful technology companies and is the founder of DropshipWholesale.net, an online organization dedicated to the success of online and eBay entrepreneurs.