When you’re working with Areas for Improvement (in an SII Assessment), the ability to create high-quality action plans is critical. Without action plans, all we have is hope. And though hope is a nice thing, it doesn’t get us very far at all. We can use an action plan to actualize what might otherwise remain merely a hope.
Consider the scenario of a disagreement between two family members. Both are frustrated and the only thing they agree on is that the relationship just isn’t working. Will that relationship improve without deliberate action to repair it, if everyone just hopes things improve?
When we want to improve our performance, it is essential that we create a plan for the actions we will take to make the improvement happen. When we create an action plan, we must use abilities such as assessing, analyzing, researching, and planning. Creating an action plan requires us to reflect, assess, and analyze past and current performances. We need to examine where we’ve been, where we are, and where we want to go.
Action plans require that we identify the key differences between the outcome we planned and the outcome that we ended up with. We need to decide which characteristics define an improved performance and choose the skills and processes that will lead to those characteristics.
Back to the family relationship. Imagine that your older sister constantly bosses you around and it has become unbearable. You’re fed up with her “suggestions”. (If you don’t have an older sister, imagine that part too.) Instead of merely hoping, chances are that you could actually improve your relationship with her by being more patient, taking on her perspective, or just treating her suggestions as suggestions instead of criticism. An action plan is how you will actualize these changes in your behavior…and thereby improve the relationship you have with her.
