It’s that time of year – the Christmas rush as the year winds down and then… it’s next year! Personally, I like to put “new year” plans into action by early December. That way, they are already in motion as Christmas approaches and they can flow smoothly into the new year. (At least, that's the theory.)
This also allows more time to plan and “get it right.” But for those who either haven’t tried this or prefer to procrastinate, you can do the following three things in the next few weeks:
- Identify two significant things that you want your organization to start doing, stop doing, or change how it’s doing it, by November 30 next year. (Remember, allow next December to start new things for the following year). This might be, “Redesign our website to be more engaging and customer-friendly.” Or, “Implement a social media strategy to increase leads.” These will be your objectives.
- Get buy-in from your team and have one individual responsible for each objective – and the all-important initiative needed to actually accomplish your two objectives.
- Develop concrete implementation plans for your initiatives. The best strategic objective – the “why” – will never be accomplished if the who, what, where, when, and how are not planned out.
This is bare-bones version of strategic planning. If you want help refining your objectives and initiatives into a concrete plan, contact us now!
One final thought (action #4, I guess): don’t stress about this. Strategy is incredibly important, but stressing about where things are at now doesn’t help. Strategy is about getting from where you are now to where you want to be!
From Peak Enterprises to you, your family, and your team, Merry Christmas!
