The Secret to a Great Planning Process - Lessons from Airbnb and Eventbrite

With thoughtfulness and shared effort, the plan will come together and be ready to share with the entire company. This should be a moment of celebration. With the help of all of the leaders across the organization, and with all of the information at your disposal, you’ve come up with the best possible plan. Share the vision, the strategy, and the e

Rolling out a new plan gives leaders the opportunity to create strong buy-in, trust, and excitement for the work ahead. Don't squander it.

Pinpoint your highest-impact bets, then go all in. Bold ideas need bold resourcing.

Remember, plans always get more complicated once they're put into practice — never less.

New priorities emerge, market forces change, and everything takes longer than you expect. Your plan needs focus — likely more focus than you might feel comfortable with.

Listen: Make sure to genuinely listen to concerns and red flags. Though it may sound like complaining, the fact that people care is a good sign. Most times teams on the ground can identify major flaws in a plan much more quickly than Leadership.

Get people excited: If you’re enthusiastic about the plan, help them see why. Give people a reason to get excited.

It’s important to challenge yourself and your peers to cut even the good ideas if they aren’t perishable (can be done later), strategic (don’t directly support this plan’s strategy), or differentiating (set you apart from your competition). Instead, put those resources against the top priorities.

This may sound painful now, but in our experience, having your strategy inform your structure (versus the other way around) is the only way to be successful long-term

The five essentials ingredients to any company strategy document are:

1. Mission - What are you meant to achieve




2. Vision - What does it look like once you’ve achieved it




3. Goal - How do you concretely know you’ve achieved it




4. Strategy - What is the path to achieving it




5. Strategic pillars - Three to five key bets that the company needs to make