The consultant may be right to say there aren’t quick fixes to serious problems, but don’t let that lead to open-ended engagements. Most consultants agree that restructuring involves two phases: a design phase, in which new ways of doing work are fashioned, and an implementation phase, in which new ways of doing work actually are put in place. Have consultant schedule these phases. This helps set up an exit strategy for consultant, which is an important cost control tool. In addition, consultant will see project as a limited engagement, rather than open ended.

3. Please set regular times to meet so that I have access to person who hired me to get clarifications and not waste your time (and not waste my time).

Set regular times to meet (weekly or monthly) when consultant will review conclusions, answer questions, and challenge you on better ways to run your business.

Make sure these are working meetings. Avoid meetings that turn into administrative updates. By meeting with consultant regularly, you can compartmentalize—and better control—the amount of time you spend with him or her. It also forces consultant to be succinct and not draw on too much of your time. In this context, you can expect more from a consultant than from an employee. The consultant’s attention should focus squarely on problems you’re paying him or her to consider, not on operational details.

Remember that you are paying bigger dollar amounts for this help, so you don’t want a consultant to be billing you for time in your office unless you are using that time wisely. Too many times employees don’t understand how a consulting arrangement works – they want consultant to be available to them during their working hours. Consultants shouldn’t be at your company every day where they can be distracted. They should only be there in order to meet with other people. Otherwise, they need to be doing their analysis in peace and quiet of their own offices.

4. Please Don’t Kill Messenger

The manager or CEO who hired consultant may be very excited at beginning of working together and feel like he or she just unloaded their burden onto some capable shoulders. Then consultant prepares an analysis and recommendations all rely on additional work to be done by managers and employees inside company. The recommendations may also involve actions that aren’t fun to carry out, such as demoting or terminating non-performing employees. They may call for additional reports or extra meetings. Expect that consultant will come to some conclusions you won’t like immediately, but they may be only way to end some long-term problems.

In conclusion, when you keep consultants disciplined and focused, you can use them to great advantage. Be clear on purpose of hiring consultant and what you can and can’t expect their work to produce. Up front clarity will lead to a productive and valuable relationship.

A game plan only looks out a year at most, but within context of a much longer period of time. The company might decide where they want to be in five years – game plan is just next series of steps toward that longer-term goal. There is no point in setting objectives for which there aren’t adequate resources, so objectives and budget are discussed in tandem. Another challenge of game planning process is to define success for each objective and decide how it will be measured.

This is a time for healthy argument as sales wants more resources to increase revenue, product development wants more of objectives to be toward R&D for company’s future, and operations manager wants more staff to improve quality. This is also time for managers to consider implications for all decisions. And it is time for CEO to create a connection between objectives and each of managers so that there is personal commitment to success of company. If managers are not committed, they will never be able to expect commitment from other employees.

Turning Objectives Into Actions

When company objectives and budget are ironed out, about half work is done. A second series of steps takes objectives set at a corporate level, and creates specific action items for each employee that support department and then company objectives. Just as CEO and managers hashed out process of give and take between what is today and where they would like to be tomorrow, each manager must go through same process with departments’ employees. Each employee must have a series of actions, but most importantly, each employee should know where they stand at any time they wish to check.

For instance, if objectives for a customer service employee are to keep call length to an average of 2 minutes, have sales of an average of $50 per customer who calls, and to return all calls within 24 hours, then you want that employee to be able to find measurements for those objectives as often as he or she wishes. The goal is for employee to have access to just as much information about his or her performance as manager. An employee who can assess his or her own progress real-time will correct performance deficiencies without a manager’s insistence.

The Plan Isn’t a Secret

The final piece is constant communication about plan and company’s progress to employees. The game plan is not only communicated initially, it must be kept alive throughout year with meetings focused on measuring progress toward goals. Successes should be celebrated frequently.

In my own company, we used something we called a Game Plan Circle to illustrate our plan each year. It was a six-foot circle with our vision in middle that radiated out to cover company objectives, department and individual objectives. It served as a visual we could refer to in meetings to keep us on track.

The Bottom Line

Don’t let your business become another failure statistic. A business plan is a great first step in starting or fundamentally changing a business. The next step is a game plan – a translation of that business plan to each employee’s actions every day.