Ok, I am a big fan of the 12 Week/90-day frameworks, and over the last few years, it has worked very well for me.
Those of you who've been following my website for a few years will know I'm a raving fanboy of the '12 Week Year' book and framework.
And, before we go on.
I have done (and if you look hard enough I am still doing) everything I take a baseball bat to this in this post.
Marketing strategy is exciting and fun; the execution is hard and simple at the same time.
You think you are communicating, but you are not, my mate Jon Buscall says it best - Marketing is a commitment, not a campaign.
After working with a coach in 2019, it became evident that I did not do any marketing, even though I thought I did.
I'm mean I Instagrammed and went to events, stuff happened.
I get clients and jobs because I am 'Known' as Mark W. Schaefer talks about in his book 'Known.'
But his 'Known' and where I was operating are worlds apart.
I was bumping into clients and getting jobs by chance which isn't as amazing as it sounds.
I had a lot more to give, and the reality was the coworking businesses I want to serve were not reaching me.

What is so good, about 12 Weeks?

The thing with working in 90-day chunks is, the business community understands it and speaks that language.
People talk about 'Q 1' results, 12 Weeks, three months and 90-day plans.
Most things past that time frame are complete fantasy. What happens in the next 90 days will decide what happens in the next 90 days after that, and so on.
Of course, someone needs to have an idea where you are heading if you are in a big organisation that will be the visionary leader type person, see below.
But the actual graft, grunt work, execution happens in 12 Week chunks, this is where you focus like a laser beam.

Vision & Execution How Does That Work?

Imagine you beat all your sales targets by 100% the next 90 days, what would you do then?

That will look very different from not selling anything.
Also, people in your business will grow up, people will get ill, women will get pregnant. As well as sales all these things affect your path.
You need to know where you are going, have an agreed vision.

What I want you to take from this part: When people plug into where you are going they will take better actions on a daily basis.

Donald Miller of StoryBrand explains it like this: 'employees and team see themselves in the company story'.

I'm a little hung up on this myself because I've worked for people that change their mind every week. I've also worked for people who I'd take a bullet for because I'm so enrolled in executing their vision. The harder and more rewarding work is always people in the second example.

Vision & Execution Data

In the 8th Habit and 4 Disciplines of Execution books written by that ever loveable Covey family, they give this example. In 2005 they did research with 23,000 employees from a range of companies and industries.

• Only 37% said they have a clear understanding of what their organisation is aiming for and why.

• One in five are excited about their team's goals and knew where they are going and how their tasks helped the goals.

• Only 15% felt they are enabled to execute team goals.

• Only 20% fully trusted the organisation where they work.

In his book, Stephen then turns this into an easier to relate to story with this football example.

"If, say, a soccer team had these same scores, only 4 of the 11 players on the field would know which goal is theirs. Only 2 of the 11 would care.

Only 2 of the 11 would know what position they play and know exactly what they are supposed to do.

And all but two players would, in some way, be competing against their team members rather than the opponent."

Stephen R Covey - 8th Habit 2006

This cute video of kids playing football with Stephen makes the point even better.
While this aims at a more enterprise, government and NGO level, the essence and message applies to small and micro-operations too.