The utility of planning the day’s work is seen clearly in a well-known story concerning Charles Schwab. When he was president of Bethlehem Steel, he presented Ivy Lee, a management consultant, with an unusual challenge. "Show me a way to get more things done with my time," he said, "and I’ll pay you any fee within reason."

Handing Schwab a sheet of paper, Lee said, "Write down the most important tasks you have to do tomorrow and number them in order of importance. When you arrive in the morning, begin at once on No. 1 and stay on it till it’s completed. Recheck your priorities; then begin with No. 2. If any task takes all day, never mind. Stick with it as long as it’s the most important one. If you don’t finish them all, you probably couldn’t do so with any method, and without some system you’d probably not even decide which one was most important. Make this a habit every working day. When it works for you, give it to your staff. Try it as long as you like. Then send me your check for what you think it’s worth."

Some weeks later, Schwab sent Lee a check for $25,000 with a note saying that the lesson was the most profitable he had ever learned. In five years, this plan was largely responsible for turning Bethlehem Steel Corporation into the biggest independent steel producer in the world. And it helped make Charles Schwab $100 million and the best-known steel man in the world. Schwab’s friends asked him later about the payment of so high a fee for such a simple idea. Schwab responded by asking, what ideas are not basically simple? He reminded them that for the first time not only he but his entire team were getting first things done first. On reflection Schwab allowed that perhaps the expenditure was the most valuable investment Bethlehem Steel had made all year.

Human nature appears to work against our planning -- even for the day ahead. We seem to feel that predetermining our course of action limits our freedom. Most of us prize this freedom and resist conforming to set patterns. Many managers are natural leaders who make judgments by intuition without conscious forethought. For the great majority, however, as work expands and grows more complex, planning becomes imperative to visualize not only what it is we want to happen but also the various alternatives for accomplishing it.

Yet barriers to planning are numerous. Emphasis on day-to-day operations almost always pushes planning into the background. Putting out today’s fires takes priority over planning for tomorrow. Ironically, fire fighting interferes with fire prevention. Uncertainty about the future is also a deterrent to planning. Winston Churchill made this point well when he observed that it is difficult to look farther ahead than you can see. Most of us feel more comfortable within a structured situation where factors are certain and predictable.

The urgency of tasks at hand usually takes priority. But as the saying goes, "When you’re up to your neck in alligators, it doesn’t help much to be reminded that your objective was to drain the swamp!" The deeper the mess, the more intimidating the pile on the top of the desk, then the less excited the manager is apt to be about taking time to plan. Yet in the long run, it’s his or her only hope.

Managers who resist planning because they "don’t have time" are failing to look ahead to the significant long-range savings in time as well as improved performance that usually results. Crawford Greenewalt, former president of DuPont, observed that the top-notch workers are t hose who first plan and then follow a more relaxed rather than a frantic pace. He added, "every moment spent planning saves three or four in execution."

Urgency engulfs managers today. Yet the most urgent task is not always the most important. The tyranny of the urgent lies in its distortion of priorities -- its giving minor projects major status, often under the claim that there is a "crisis" to deal with. Various groups of managers have tackled the causes of the tyranny of the urgent. One interesting reason given by some was "their own gratification in overcoming crises." Another cause was identified in these terms: Most of us think we work best under pressure." Sometimes we wait, delay, or procrastinate until the pressure forces us into action. But do we really work best under pressure, or do we work simply faster and less well because of hasty judgments or lack of preparation? Is the problem even deeper -- a lack of internal motivation on our part?

Still another reason that fire fighting become necessary is the reluctance of subordinates to present bad news in the hope that it will get better before they have to report it. The problem is that bad news often gets worse.

A group of managers I read about in Canada recommended that executives anticipate crises by planning only 90 percent of the day, leaving 20 percent unplanned to provide a cushion for the unexpected. Another strategy is contingency planning. After a crisis resulting from conditions that can reasonably be expected to recur, the effective manager thinks through what steps can be taken to prevent these conditions from developing into a crisis again.

Essentially the planning process involved (1) analyzing the present situation (where we are now), (2) developing relevant assumptions (what conditions are likely to exist within the time span of the plan), (3) establishing objectives (what I want to achieve), (4) developing alternatives (what different ways might attain these objectives), (5) making and implementing the decision, and (6) establishing review and control procedures.

Many managers, neglecting to look ahead, allow their tasks to get pushed together and thus find themselves running out of time. One manager who had been recently promoted to a new position of leadership observed, "I was so busy doing things I should have delegated that I didn’t have time to manage." Watching the flood of events, decisions, interruptions, and crises in this new position, he came to realize that "he should run the job rather than have the job run him."

The past several months have been filled with many changes here at EnAble.
Following are the highlights of our progress, which we anticipate will improve our services in significant ways.

The new staff structure was fully implemented on September 10, 2006 when all the staff members were working in re-designed roles. Highlights of those changes include:

• Elimination of the Coordinator role.

In the past, Coordinators of Support Services had served as the off-site supervisors of staff working directly with consumers.

• Enhancement of the Support Manager role. Support Managers became the direct on-site supervisors of staff members. They hire, schedule, train, and supervise staff serving in

the homes. They also have direct support                          Joyce Edwards

responsibilities.

• Addition of the Lead Support Associate role in residential services. This role is similar to the former Support Manager role. In general, leads work weekend hours to provide oversight and supervision to staff.

• Addition of the Support Service Leader role. Support Service Leaders coordinate EnAble’s service planning process and ensure that the services are delivered as planned. They represent the interests of assigned individual consumers and coordinate the ISP process. They are not part of the operational aspect of our services. Three of our former coordinators assumed this role: Lynita Henderson, Amy Hines, and Seth Quick.

• Increased focus on staff training and coaching in all settings.

The transitional work is ongoing as we develop and improve the way we work together to support the people we serve.

We’re especially excited about our new training program which will be in operation in January. We will be utilizing online training available through the College of Direct Support to give our employees easier access to high-quality training on core topics. EnAble will also be offering an expanded range of on-site classes and courses available to staff. Each staff member will have an individualized in-service training plan in place by January 15th (and every January thereafter) that will be developed to build needed knowledge and skills. The plan will be developed with consideration given to: needs of the assigned consumer focus person; areas for growth and improvement identified in the performance appraisal, required

re-certifications and available classes and courses.

The New Hire training program is also undergoing a major transformation in January. Our new approach utilizes the College of Direct Support and eliminates the need for staff to attend our monthly New Hire training program before they can start work. Staff members can start work any Monday instead of one Monday per month.

We expect this to significantly cut our overtime costs as we decrease vacancies and the period of time new staff have to wait to begin work. We’ll be continuing our monthly New Hire class with new content and adding New Hire II in February. This change will also lessen the uncertainty and turmoil of staff changes on consumers.

The amount and quality of training is greatly increased with these plans. We hope to see a higher quality of support and also expect a reduction in turnover rates through these efforts.

We are also providing monthly required training classes for all Support Managers that provide more in-depth consideration of core topics. Lead Support Associates are also included in most of these training sessions.

After a long wait, I’m happy to report that we have received our license to provide personal support services in North Fulton in addition to the license we already had in South Fulton. In South Fulton, we instituted this service primarily with individuals who lived in our group homes and wanted to move into their own apartments. That has been a highly successful venture. Not too long ago, one of these individuals told me that she loved her apartment and never wanted to live in a group home again.

In North Fulton, we anticipate that we’ll initially be serving individuals who are new to the agency in this service. I have been meeting with some families for several months in anticipation of our licensure.

This fall, Support Service staff spent many hours defining performance criteria for all aspects of Support Associate and Support Manager positions. We reached agreement on just what was "meeting expectations" for all of these criteria. From these discussions we created new performance appraisal forms that clearly spell out these expectations and standardize our evaluation of employees. These new forms were used in the recent annual performance review process. They are a significant training tool.

Over the next few months, we’re working to ensure that we meet all requirements for our upcoming accreditation review this summer. We’ve made considerable progress so far, but need to fine-tune a lot of policies and procedures in a number of areas.

We have also been working closely with Richard Colyer, Executive Director, and Carol Holman, Director of Finance, to develop budgets for each location and to redesign our Chart of Accounts so that appropriate fund accounting and budgets can be implemented for each home and support service location.

We’re also working to develop a clear vision and strategy for our Day Services and Supported Employment programs. w

•`Florence Are, LaTaunya Jarrette, Jimilah Williamson- Snead, and Jessamy Anderson were recently promoted to Support Managers.

• Karen Wright is new to our team and serving EnAble in the role of Employment Specialist in South Fulton.