Can Your Team Deliver Next Year?

Most leadership teams can agree on next year's goals in a single meeting. Whether they can deliver them is a different conversation, and it usually doesn't happen.

The budget looks fine. The growth targets seem reasonable. The board has signed off. Meanwhile, the people who have to make it all happen are already full, unclear on who decides what, or about to take on something they've never done before.

So as you plan for next year, put this question on the table: what will this plan ask of our leaders that we aren't asking of them today?

Bigger goals change the job. Say a manufacturer wants to grow sales, launch a new product line, and improve margins. Each goal makes sense alone. Put them together and every function feels it. Operations has to raise output without hurting quality. Supply chain has to handle more complexity and hold costs. Finance has to show which investments actually pay off. HR has to get the workforce ready and build up the managers.

If the plan quietly assumes everyone will fit this on top of what they already do, say that out loud and test it. What changes in each role? What gets dropped? Where do you need skills you don't have yet? These belong in the planning meeting, not in the January review.

Your best people are probably overloaded. The leaders you trust most get handed the hard projects. They fix problems that cross departments and cover for colleagues who are stuck. After a while, the business leans on them personally.

Picture a plant manager responsible for daily performance, supervisor development, an expansion, and a new system rollout. They understand every piece and still can't give each one enough time. Before you add anything to that list, look at what's already waiting on them: approvals in the queue, problems that keep coming back to their desk, work that stops when they're out. That's your capacity limit.

Accountability without authority doesn't work. Having a clear goal doesn't mean ownership is clear. Sometimes one person answers for the result while another controls the budget. Sometimes three departments share a priority and nobody can say who has the final call. And sometimes a routine tradeoff climbs all the way to the CEO because no one below feels able to settle it.

As priorities take shape for next year, a few questions help:

• Who owns the outcome?
• What can that person decide alone?
• What money and people can they commit?
• When two priorities collide, who settles it?

Sorting this out now is far cheaper than explaining a missed commitment later.

Judge the team against the next plan. Good results this year deserve credit. They don't prove someone is ready for next year's plan. A leader who ran a steady operation well may need help leading an expansion. A great firefighter may need to get better at longer-range planning. A technical expert may need to learn to lead across the business.

Ask what this person needs to succeed in the next stage. Sometimes the answer is development. Sometimes it's a clearer role, stronger managers underneath them, or extra leadership support. Sometimes it's a new hire. Let the needs of the business drive that call.

PE Watch:

Can Your Portfolio Company Carry the Plan You Approved?

An approved budget is a list of promises, and each one has a name next to it. Before the next board cycle, find out whether those people can keep them.

• Put a name and a number of hours next to every initiative. That means each add-on integration, pricing project, and ERP rollout. If the hours don't fit into anyone's week, the plan is overcommitted.

• Notice who shows up beside three or four priorities. Their record may be excellent. The plan still depends on how much of them there is to go around.

• Make sure owners can decide. It's easy to hold a CEO to a number while spending approvals sit with someone else. Fix that before the targets are locked.

• Use budget season to choose a response. You can develop the leader, redesign the role, or hire. All three are open while next year's plan is still a draft. After a missed quarter, usually only one is.

Munufacturing Watch:

What Has to Stop so the New Work Can Start?

An approved budget is a list of promises, and each one has a name next to it. Before the next board cycle, find out whether those people can keep them.

• Put a name and a number of hours next to every initiative. That means each add-on integration, pricing project, and ERP rollout. If the hours don't fit into anyone's week, the plan is overcommitted.

• Notice who shows up beside three or four priorities. Their record may be excellent. The plan still depends on how much of them there is to go around.

• Make sure owners can decide. It's easy to hold a CEO to a number while spending approvals sit with someone else. Fix that before the targets are locked.

• Use budget season to choose a response. You can develop the leader, redesign the role, or hire. All three are open while next year's plan is still a draft. After a missed quarter, usually only one is.

Executive Takeaways

• Test the plan against your people. Before you commit to next year's goals, confirm your leaders have the skills, time, authority, and alignment to deliver them.

• Check what already depends on your strongest leaders. Review their load before you hand them more.

• Give every outcome an owner who can decide. Accountability without authority is a missed commitment waiting to happen.

• Pick your response before January. Develop the leader, redesign the responsibilities, or hire where there's a real gap, while you still have time to do it well.

Before you sign off on next year's plan, ask your leadership team one thing:

"Where does this plan ask more of us than we're ready to deliver?"

What they tell you may be the most useful input your planning process gets. If you'd like a second set of eyes on the answer, I'm happy to talk it through.

The Executive Perspective is Group928’s monthly briefing for leaders in private equity-backed manufacturing, exploring the leadership trends, market shifts, and executive insights shaping operational excellence.

Each month, we take a closer look at the issues that matter most to the leaders responsible for driving performance, building stronger organizations, and creating lasting value.