Business Planning Coaching

For context, this was done around April of 2021. AIESEC Australia is a national body, responsible for 11 local branches. During these times, we are facilitating coaching touchpoints for the local branches for them to review their operations for the past two quarters, and set down new business plans for the upcoming two quarters. Furthermore, this is also a crucial touchpoint for us to align the national direction with all local branches, in order to ensure everybody is moving the organization in the same direction (organizational direction downscaling).

As it is going to be a two day coaching event, I have limited time and a lot of content to go through. This is also designed with the previous planning coaching in mind, which happened back in December 2020. The learnings from that coaching touchpoint, was that while the planning framework was solid (it is the one showcased in another project), the local branches had a difficult time maximizing its utility, as we failed to properly teach them how to utilize the framework.

To get started, I broke down 5 key aspects that needed to be covered in this planning coaching, alongside key non-negotiables that needs to be addressed.

As you can see above, they 5 key aspects are

Product Direction - This is the space where we downscale AIESEC Australia's national direction & get buy in from the local branches (LC).

LC goal setting - Once the local branches take on the national direction, next is for them to set their goals and focuses for the next 2 quarters.

Function Strategy - With goals & focuses set, next is to finalize how are we going to achieve then, which forms the core of the business strategy of the local branches.

Member goal setting - With goals and strategy set, next is outlining the responsibilities of the members of the local branches, and their monthly minimums.

Culture planning - Finally, with all the business strategy done, it is time to discuss implementation, and this is where culture comes into the conversation. The main question is: "What is the culture I need to nurture in my local branch to ensure we can achieve all our goals?"

With that, this agenda is thus created:

The following is a brief explanation of each block:

National Direction - Showcasing the new national direction of AIESEC Australia. 30 minute to keep it brief so we don't lose people Why should I care is the storytelling segment of national direction. National Direction QnA is an open space for the local branches to gain more clarity on the new national direction.

LC Goal Setting 101 - In this segment, we look to solidify the focus and goals of the local branches. Define LC focus is meant to be a discussion space for the management team to agree upon key strategic focus for the next 2 quarters. Function goal setting is for them to translate their focus and ambitions into tangible metrics and numbers, which all cumulates to ensuring the goals they set can help them breakeven, which is the last segment.

Function planning 101 - In this part, the management team is tasked to work on the strategies for their own respective functions. The end goal of this segment is for each function in the local branch to have clear focus & strategies to help them achieve the goals they've set in the previous segment, as well as clarity on the role their members would play to help them achieve their function ambitions.

Membership goal setting 101 - The next day, the management team will first come together to showcase each other's strategies and provide feedback. This is to ensure the whole team is on the same page on what everybody is trying to do. After that we will go into detailing the job description of their members, i.e. details about monthly KPIs, summary of responsibilities, necessary knowledge, skills, attitude, and upskilling plan. This is all to ensure that we can properly recruit and equip the right people who will help us achieve our ambitions.

Culture planning 101 - Finally we come to the end where we talk about organizational culture. The reality is culture eats strategy for breakfast, which means no matter how good your strategy is, if you don't have the right culture to support it, you will fail regardless. For this segment, we start with ideating the ideal culture the local branch managers want to cultivate. We then make it tangible in two ways: (1) break it down into simple routines that needs to be fostered, as culture is just the way people work together, and (2) clear expectations to the membership, so that they are aware of the dos and don'ts which would help facilitate culture building as well.

As you can see, the whole agenda is highly functional driven, where there is no spaces for leadership or management upskilling. This is where the plenary sessions come in. They are meant to be flexible spaces where the coach and the local branch president will coordinate on what is the key skills that are lacking in the management team and what kind of sessions need to be run to address that.

An example of that with my coachees are shown bellow:

All in all, this business planning coaching agenda helped the national team, which I am part of, to be clear about the essential aspects of business planning the local branches needs to get absolutely right. This helps the coaches to concentrate their efforts to ensure all local branches are well prepared for the upcoming quarters, and ensuring organizational sustainability.

The local branch presidents also gave feedback that this is really well done, as it doesn't just give them clarity on what are the key objectives of this coaching touchpoints, but it also helped address a lot of key bottlenecks that currently exist in their local branches, e.g. lack of clarity in direction, poor membership goal setting, poor culture planning, etc.