November 25, 2025 • 15 mins
Plan With Purpose — What High-Performing Small Teams Do Differently
Here’s a hard truth: fewer than half of new small-business teams are still operating five years in. And one of the clearest reasons why? They didn’t plan with purpose. They rolled the dice rather than building structure. If you’re leading a small team, this is a reality check — survival comes from closing the gap between planning and execution.
In today’s episode, we’re digging into what separates teams that consistently deliver from the ones that stay stuck in overwhelm. Spoiler: it’s not talent. It’s not passion. It’s not “trying harder.”
It’s planning with purpose — and actually executing the plan.
High-performing small teams move differently. They know their priorities. They align their people. They use data to lead. And they operate from structure, not stress.
This episode walks you through exactly what that looks like and how to build it into your leadership rhythm.
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Ready to close the gap between goals and results?
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
SPEAKER_00 (00:00):
Here's the hard truth for small team leaders.
You may have the best plan, butnine out of ten businesses will
never turn the plan intoresults.
And that's called the executiongap.
Today we're going to show youhow to close that gap for your
(00:23):
team.
Welcome back to LeveragingOperations and Leadership.
I'm Tanya, your leadership andteam performance partner for
small teams that want to worksmarter, lead stronger, and
build a culture of excellence.
Today's episode is Plan withPurpose.
We're going to talk about whathigh-performing small teams do
(00:45):
differently.
Because small teams don't thriveon luck, they thrive on clarity,
they thrive on alignment.
They thrive on structure.
And the difference between ateam that's overwhelmed and a
team that's consistentlyperforming often comes down to
one thing (01:04):
purposeful, intentional planning.
And that's what we're going totalk about today.
Here's why planning setshigh-performing teams apart.
When you look at small teamsthat consistently deliver,
you'll notice somethingimmediately.
(02:26):
That's not the case with smallteams.
In a previous podcast episode, Italked about a CEO that I work
with, and he had a small team.
And at the time we startedworking together, he was down
two people.
That's a third of his team.
That's huge for a small team.
(02:48):
One of the things that we had todo is we had to start unpacking
everything and identify what theroot cause was, why the people
left.
And we realized that the teammembers that left, the two
vacant roles, they weren't theright fit.
(03:10):
But we also identified why theyweren't the right fit.
And we were able to build ahiring plan so that he could go
out and hire with intention.
Hire based on the things thatwere important to him and the
team.
And the next two hires, I haveto tell you, they were in
(03:33):
complete alignment.
Performance improved, stressdecreased, all of the things.
But it started with a plan.
And I'm talking about planningright now in the month of
November when many of you areplanning for the next year.
So this is an optimal time toactually start planning if you
(03:58):
haven't started that process.
I want to share with you whatplanning with purpose actually
looks like so that you couldstart to close that gap that we
talked about earlier.
Many businesses either have aplan in their head, buddy, they
set goals in their head, orthey'll even write them down,
(04:22):
but they don't have a full-blownplan that tells them how they're
going to execute it on a regularbasis.
One of the biggest gaps ispeople plan, but they don't
integrate it within theday-to-day operations of your
business.
Your plan has to become a partof your business.
(04:43):
It's not something that youwrite and you put in a shelf or
you put in a binder somewhere.
This is something that is livingand breathing, and you are
executing it on a regular basis,and your team is executing it on
a regular basis.
So let's dig in and talk aboutwhat this looks like.
(05:03):
What planning with purpose is.
And it's not about adding morework to your plate, because we
know as a leader, you alreadyhave a lot of work, but it is
about structuring what youalready do so that you and your
team can get better results.
So let's break it down in acouple of steps.
(05:23):
The first thing that you want todo is start with outcome-driven
goals.
This isn't a task list.
These goals are going to beoutcome-related.
For instance, if I want toimprove client experience,
that's not my goal to improveclient experience.
I need to put more meat aroundit.
(05:43):
I need to make itoutcome-driven, make it
measurable, make it clear sowhen I'm sharing it with the
team, they understand whatsuccess looks like.
So if I wanted to use that,improve client experience, I may
say something like increaseclient satisfaction scores from
(06:04):
4.2 to 4.8 this quarter bytightening our onboarding
process and reducing responsetime to less than a business
day.
That's specific.
I can measure it.
People know what the expectationis.
I'm talking about operationalclarity.
(06:25):
And then they know what successlooks like.
They know if they are doing wellor not.
If we are consistentlyresponding in more than a
business day, then we know we'renot meeting the goal that we set
in place.
That's number one.
You want outcome-driven goalsthat they're going to eliminate
(06:48):
the guesswork and they're goingto create alignment, but most
importantly, they're going toprovide clarity.
The second thing you want to dois identify the gaps.
And you want to identify thegaps before they actually derail
your plan.
Every goal carries gaps.
That's just a part of it.
(07:10):
But you want to make sure thatyou are identifying what those
gaps look like ahead of time soyou can start to close the gaps.
For instance, with my goal thatI said earlier about improving
the client satisfaction scores,there may be some things that I
(07:31):
need to do.
Maybe I need to put a process inplace because there is no
process for onboarding clients,or maybe there isn't a process
for how we're going to respondto people in less than a day.
Maybe I don't have the team todo it, the resources to do it.
I need to consider that.
(07:51):
Is there some type of technologythat I can implement that's
going to help with that?
So identifying these themes,whether it's like I said, a
missing process, uh, capacityissues, skill development,
whatever that looks like, I needto be able to identify it.
Because if I put a plan inplace, if I put a goal in place,
(08:14):
and there's a gap that I do notclose, then the likelihood of me
achieving my goal just decrease.
So I want to take some time andI want to really think through
what could stop me fromachieving that goal and what do
I need to do to fix it?
(08:35):
The third thing you want to dois translate the plan into
people and performance.
Who owns it?
Think about it.
What person is going to ownthis?
What person is going to beresponsible for this?
What do they do if they're notmeeting it?
Is there an escalation process?
(08:57):
That is the person and makingsure that they have the things
that they need.
The performance piece is how isit going to be measured?
How often is it going to bemeasured?
Who's going to measure it?
Who are they going to share itwith?
What does it look like if we'renot meeting our goals?
All of these things need to beconsidered.
(09:18):
This is a part of puttingtogether a tight plan.
By making sure you know who's onfirst and who's doing what, it
eliminates confusion.
It eliminates duplication.
And by defining your success interms of metrics, now you know
clearly if you're on track ornot.
(09:40):
And as the leader, you candecide how you want to move, if
you need to change some things,but you need to have the
information.
Somebody needs to be feeding youthis information.
Someone needs to be on top ofit.
And they need to know first,whoever owns it, if it's going
in the right direction or not.
The fourth thing you want to dois connect the plan to the
(10:04):
purpose.
This is the why behind the work.
And I find that this isextremely important, not just
for the leader, but this isimportant for the team as well.
Purpose fuels consistency, andconsistency fuels performance.
And performance fuels growth.
(10:25):
When you and your teamunderstand how your work
connects with the vision,connects with the purpose,
connects with the client impactand their own growth, they show
up differently.
And this is one of the reasonswhy I'm always telling leaders
you need to share, especially ifyou're a business owner, you
(10:49):
need to be sharing your purpose,sharing your vision with your
team.
When you have a team that buysinto this purpose, they show up
differently.
They are now a part ofsomething.
They're a part of something andthey understand what they're
(11:11):
doing, they understand theimpact.
Make sure you are sharing thiswith the team.
And then not just the purpose,but the entire plan.
So you could do this a couple ofdifferent ways.
There may be pieces of it whileyou are actually going through
(11:32):
and creating the plan.
You may have different teammembers that are a part of it.
But at the end of it, wheneverything is put together, you
want to share the completed planwith the team.
You want everybody to understandeverything.
Even if there's a part of theplan that someone is not a part
of, you want everybody to havethe same information.
(11:56):
You'll be surprised of howimpactful this is.
Because even though a part ofthe plan may not touch one
employee, but now they know thefull plan and they understand
how their piece may impactsomebody else.
Give them the full information.
This is not the time for you tohoard information from your
(12:18):
team.
That's how you implementpurposeful planning.
Those are the steps.
(12:39):
Just to recap really quickly,the first thing you want to do
is start with outcome-drivengoals.
Remember that your goals are nottasks.
They need to be measurable,operational clarity.
Um, they need to define success.
You want to identify the gapsbefore they derail you.
(12:59):
Identify what those gaps are,and then start filling the gaps
so that they don't stop you fromachieving your goals.
The third thing, translate theplan into people to own what
part of the process, what partof the goal.
And then you want to alsoidentify what performance looks
(13:21):
like.
How am I going to track it?
This is my metrics.
What am I tracking?
Who's going to track it?
How often I'm going to track it,how is this information going to
be shared?
The fourth thing you want to dois connect the plan to purpose.
This is the why behind the work.
Making sure you understand whatthe purpose is and your team
(13:45):
understands the purpose.
And then the last thing you wantto do is share the completed
plan with your team so thateverybody understands what's
going on, what we're driving forin the next month, quarter,
year, whatever it is that you'replanning for.
If you found this helpful, Iwant to share with you a guide
(14:07):
that I created.
It's called the Gap Guide.
And basically, it's a tool thathelps you close the space
between setting goals andachieving goals.
When we're talking about goals,I'm not replacing your.
If you do any type ofprojections and things like that
with your accountant or on yourown, it doesn't replace that,
(14:30):
but it talks about how you'regoing to take that information,
how you're going to take thatgoal and document it and then go
through these steps where youare actually going to be
creating what that dashboardlooks like.
Creating where you're going toput these tasks and hold people
accountable for and all of thethings.
So be sure to download theguide.
(15:05):
Your team deserves clarity, yourbusiness deserves consistency,
and you deserve a planningsystem that supports both.
Download the Gap guide using thelink that's in the show notes.
And let me know what youthought.
If today's episode helped you,ship your perspective, share it
with another small team leaderwho needs it.
(15:27):
And don't forget to give us areview.
Let us know how we're doing.
And then don't forget todownload this recap guide with
all of the resources.
It's your roadmap to startleading with it.
I'll see you in a minute.
Here's the hard truth for small team leaders.
You may have the best plan, butnine out of ten businesses will
never turn the plan intoresults.
And that's called the executiongap.
Today we're going to show youhow to close that gap for your
(00:23):
team.
Welcome back to LeveragingOperations and Leadership.
I'm Tanya, your leadership andteam performance partner for
small teams that want to worksmarter, lead stronger, and
build a culture of excellence.
Today's episode is Plan withPurpose.
We're going to talk about whathigh-performing small teams do
(00:45):
differently.
Because small teams don't thriveon luck, they thrive on clarity,
they thrive on alignment.
They thrive on structure.
And the difference between ateam that's overwhelmed and a
team that's consistentlyperforming often comes down to
one thing (01:04):
purposeful, intentional planning.
And that's what we're going totalk about today.
Here's why planning setshigh-performing teams apart.
When you look at small teamsthat consistently deliver,
you'll notice somethingimmediately.
(02:26):
That's not the case with smallteams.
In a previous podcast episode, Italked about a CEO that I work
with, and he had a small team.
And at the time we startedworking together, he was down
two people.
That's a third of his team.
That's huge for a small team.
(02:48):
One of the things that we had todo is we had to start unpacking
everything and identify what theroot cause was, why the people
left.
And we realized that the teammembers that left, the two
vacant roles, they weren't theright fit.
(03:10):
But we also identified why theyweren't the right fit.
And we were able to build ahiring plan so that he could go
out and hire with intention.
Hire based on the things thatwere important to him and the
team.
And the next two hires, I haveto tell you, they were in
(03:33):
complete alignment.
Performance improved, stressdecreased, all of the things.
But it started with a plan.
And I'm talking about planningright now in the month of
November when many of you areplanning for the next year.
So this is an optimal time toactually start planning if you
(03:58):
haven't started that process.
I want to share with you whatplanning with purpose actually
looks like so that you couldstart to close that gap that we
talked about earlier.
Many businesses either have aplan in their head, buddy, they
set goals in their head, orthey'll even write them down,
(04:22):
but they don't have a full-blownplan that tells them how they're
going to execute it on a regularbasis.
One of the biggest gaps ispeople plan, but they don't
integrate it within theday-to-day operations of your
business.
Your plan has to become a partof your business.
(04:43):
It's not something that youwrite and you put in a shelf or
you put in a binder somewhere.
This is something that is livingand breathing, and you are
executing it on a regular basis,and your team is executing it on
a regular basis.
So let's dig in and talk aboutwhat this looks like.
(05:03):
What planning with purpose is.
And it's not about adding morework to your plate, because we
know as a leader, you alreadyhave a lot of work, but it is
about structuring what youalready do so that you and your
team can get better results.
So let's break it down in acouple of steps.
(05:23):
The first thing that you want todo is start with outcome-driven
goals.
This isn't a task list.
These goals are going to beoutcome-related.
For instance, if I want toimprove client experience,
that's not my goal to improveclient experience.
I need to put more meat aroundit.
(05:43):
I need to make itoutcome-driven, make it
measurable, make it clear sowhen I'm sharing it with the
team, they understand whatsuccess looks like.
So if I wanted to use that,improve client experience, I may
say something like increaseclient satisfaction scores from
(06:04):
4.2 to 4.8 this quarter bytightening our onboarding
process and reducing responsetime to less than a business
day.
That's specific.
I can measure it.
People know what the expectationis.
I'm talking about operationalclarity.
(06:25):
And then they know what successlooks like.
They know if they are doing wellor not.
If we are consistentlyresponding in more than a
business day, then we know we'renot meeting the goal that we set
in place.
That's number one.
You want outcome-driven goalsthat they're going to eliminate
(06:48):
the guesswork and they're goingto create alignment, but most
importantly, they're going toprovide clarity.
The second thing you want to dois identify the gaps.
And you want to identify thegaps before they actually derail
your plan.
Every goal carries gaps.
That's just a part of it.
(07:10):
But you want to make sure thatyou are identifying what those
gaps look like ahead of time soyou can start to close the gaps.
For instance, with my goal thatI said earlier about improving
the client satisfaction scores,there may be some things that I
(07:31):
need to do.
Maybe I need to put a process inplace because there is no
process for onboarding clients,or maybe there isn't a process
for how we're going to respondto people in less than a day.
Maybe I don't have the team todo it, the resources to do it.
I need to consider that.
(07:51):
Is there some type of technologythat I can implement that's
going to help with that?
So identifying these themes,whether it's like I said, a
missing process, uh, capacityissues, skill development,
whatever that looks like, I needto be able to identify it.
Because if I put a plan inplace, if I put a goal in place,
(08:14):
and there's a gap that I do notclose, then the likelihood of me
achieving my goal just decrease.
So I want to take some time andI want to really think through
what could stop me fromachieving that goal and what do
I need to do to fix it?
(08:35):
The third thing you want to dois translate the plan into
people and performance.
Who owns it?
Think about it.
What person is going to ownthis?
What person is going to beresponsible for this?
What do they do if they're notmeeting it?
Is there an escalation process?
(08:57):
That is the person and makingsure that they have the things
that they need.
The performance piece is how isit going to be measured?
How often is it going to bemeasured?
Who's going to measure it?
Who are they going to share itwith?
What does it look like if we'renot meeting our goals?
All of these things need to beconsidered.
(09:18):
This is a part of puttingtogether a tight plan.
By making sure you know who's onfirst and who's doing what, it
eliminates confusion.
It eliminates duplication.
And by defining your success interms of metrics, now you know
clearly if you're on track ornot.
(09:40):
And as the leader, you candecide how you want to move, if
you need to change some things,but you need to have the
information.
Somebody needs to be feeding youthis information.
Someone needs to be on top ofit.
And they need to know first,whoever owns it, if it's going
in the right direction or not.
The fourth thing you want to dois connect the plan to the
(10:04):
purpose.
This is the why behind the work.
And I find that this isextremely important, not just
for the leader, but this isimportant for the team as well.
Purpose fuels consistency, andconsistency fuels performance.
And performance fuels growth.
(10:25):
When you and your teamunderstand how your work
connects with the vision,connects with the purpose,
connects with the client impactand their own growth, they show
up differently.
And this is one of the reasonswhy I'm always telling leaders
you need to share, especially ifyou're a business owner, you
(10:49):
need to be sharing your purpose,sharing your vision with your
team.
When you have a team that buysinto this purpose, they show up
differently.
They are now a part ofsomething.
They're a part of something andthey understand what they're
(11:11):
doing, they understand theimpact.
Make sure you are sharing thiswith the team.
And then not just the purpose,but the entire plan.
So you could do this a couple ofdifferent ways.
There may be pieces of it whileyou are actually going through
(11:32):
and creating the plan.
You may have different teammembers that are a part of it.
But at the end of it, wheneverything is put together, you
want to share the completed planwith the team.
You want everybody to understandeverything.
Even if there's a part of theplan that someone is not a part
of, you want everybody to havethe same information.
(11:56):
You'll be surprised of howimpactful this is.
Because even though a part ofthe plan may not touch one
employee, but now they know thefull plan and they understand
how their piece may impactsomebody else.
Give them the full information.
This is not the time for you tohoard information from your
(12:18):
team.
That's how you implementpurposeful planning.
Those are the steps.
(12:39):
Just to recap really quickly,the first thing you want to do
is start with outcome-drivengoals.
Remember that your goals are nottasks.
They need to be measurable,operational clarity.
Um, they need to define success.
You want to identify the gapsbefore they derail you.
(12:59):
Identify what those gaps are,and then start filling the gaps
so that they don't stop you fromachieving your goals.
The third thing, translate theplan into people to own what
part of the process, what partof the goal.
And then you want to alsoidentify what performance looks
(13:21):
like.
How am I going to track it?
This is my metrics.
What am I tracking?
Who's going to track it?
How often I'm going to track it,how is this information going to
be shared?
The fourth thing you want to dois connect the plan to purpose.
This is the why behind the work.
Making sure you understand whatthe purpose is and your team
(13:45):
understands the purpose.
And then the last thing you wantto do is share the completed
plan with your team so thateverybody understands what's
going on, what we're driving forin the next month, quarter,
year, whatever it is that you'replanning for.
If you found this helpful, Iwant to share with you a guide
(14:07):
that I created.
It's called the Gap Guide.
And basically, it's a tool thathelps you close the space
between setting goals andachieving goals.
When we're talking about goals,I'm not replacing your.
If you do any type ofprojections and things like that
with your accountant or on yourown, it doesn't replace that,
(14:30):
but it talks about how you'regoing to take that information,
how you're going to take thatgoal and document it and then go
through these steps where youare actually going to be
creating what that dashboardlooks like.
Creating where you're going toput these tasks and hold people
accountable for and all of thethings.
So be sure to download theguide.
(15:05):
Your team deserves clarity, yourbusiness deserves consistency,
and you deserve a planningsystem that supports both.
Download the Gap guide using thelink that's in the show notes.
And let me know what youthought.
If today's episode helped you,ship your perspective, share it
with another small team leaderwho needs it.
(15:27):
And don't forget to give us areview.
Let us know how we're doing.
And then don't forget todownload this recap guide with
all of the resources.
It's your roadmap to startleading with it.
I'll see you in a minute.
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