From Reactive to Strategic: Planning Tips for District Managers
When you're a General Manager, your day is decided by operations. You know when to open the unit, what to do during your rush or peak hours, you follow a closing checklist, etc. However, when you're a District Manager, no one schedules your day, tells you what to do, which unit to visit, or what to focus on.
- If District Managers don't plan with intention, they will spend their week reacting to whatever happens in each unit. And a reactive District Manager won’t be able to move the business forward.
In this blog post, we’ll explore the second critical responsibility of a District Manager: Planning, and share planning tips for District Managers to help them become strategic planners who get more done in less time and with greater impact.
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The Need for Planning
Planning is the biggest mindset shift from a General Manager (GM) to a District Manager (DM). Why?
As I mentioned, Unit Managers know the specific tasks and activities they must execute to run operations. However, as a District Manager, you decide everything on your agenda: what to do, when to do it, who to do it with, why you’re doing it, and the outcome you expect.
This freedom is a gift, but it can become a trap if you’re not disciplined enough to do it the right way. If DMs know how to plan effectively, they will win, and their districts will meet their goals. But if they improvise all the time, their units will fall behind, and they will underperform, feel overwhelmed, and likely experience burnout.
But planning goes beyond paperwork. It's the primary strategy and tool for a District Manager that will allow them to work the right amount of hours and be effective at what they do every day.
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How to be a Strategic Planner
Planning Tip #1: Start Every Week With a Written Plan
- Ideally, your weekly activities should be written down on a calendar so you don’t forget tasks or follow-ups.
- List which units you're going to visit and why you're visiting them.
- Add the performance data you'll be reviewing. Include the past notes of each unit and what follow-up you need to do from your prior visits.
- Don't forget to consider the traveling distance between units. You won’t want to rush your visit just because you don’t have enough time to go to the next one.
- Schedule time to analyze your units and your overall district to see where you need to spend your time so you can start causing change with the team.
- Build some buffer because emergencies happen. While addressing urgent calls is important, having a contingency plan to act upon makes a big difference.
- Review your prior week to see if there are any pending items, follow-ups, or anything you want to check again this week.
If you apply this level of focus to your planning, the results will be completely different!
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Planning Tip #2: Plan by Priority, Not Proximity
- Don't visit the units closest to you or the ones easiest to visit. Prioritize those that need you the most and visit them more often, even if they are the farthest away.
- Consider the performance data, the results, the leader’s needs, and the opportunities in each unit to make that decision.
- This information will not only help you determine where you're going to go, but also what you're going to do and how much time you're going to spend there.
- Low-performing units need more structured visits, while high-performing units need development visits. Plan your visits accordingly.
A great District Manager visits the units with purpose, not just presence. So, District Managers should really take a look at their district to see where the opportunities are. That way, they’ll be able to move the needle the best.
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Planning Tip #3: Plan Beyond the Week
- Truly great District Managers have a vision for what lies ahead.
- Plan a quarter at a time, but make sure you are actually causing change week by week, with a 90-day goal in mind.
- Make sure your plans align with what the Franchisee wants to accomplish over the next week, month, or quarter so you can meet expectations.
- To be able to plan by quarter, you need to know the promotional calendar, the hiring cycle (especially if your business has a lot of seasonality), and the peak business periods.
If District Managers understand everything that affects the business, not just now but in the weeks ahead, they’ll be able not only to plan their calendars effectively, but to guide the Unit Managers to plan the same way.
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Planning Tip #5: Include Development Time in your Agenda
- Coaching doesn't happen accidentally. You need to plan when you're going to do development activities and with whom you're going to do them.
- Consider not only the Unit Managers and Assistant Managers, but also the high potentials you want to develop for the future.
- Set aside time to develop your multi-unit leadership and management skills as well.
(Keep reading to discover a great solution we can offer you!) - Share your plan with your Franchisee to see if they have any feedback. This creates transparency, and transparency builds trust.
Next Sunday night, when you sit down to plan your entire week, keep all of these planning tips for District Managers in mind and plan not only based on what the stores or your people need, but also on the buffers and all the rules I shared in this blog post.
- If you are that intentional in how you plan your time, you'll be amazed at the results you can accomplish in your district.
If you would like to master these planning skills, you might want to explore our LEAD Program. This is a Multi-Unit Leadership Certification Program specifically designed for the District Manager, where we provide the knowledge, the tools, and the resources to become the best leader they can be in their district.
Reflections:
- Are your District Managers overloaded?
- Can they differentiate between what’s urgent and what’s important?
- Are your DMs properly trained to perform as they should?
- How are you helping your District Managers thrive?
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