Corporate Strategic Plans
There is a valid reason why this strategic planning ritual is played out each year, especially in successful companies – it works! Having a budget, marketing plan, sales quotas, hiring plans and more provides a road map for all of the staff to follow.
The problem is in many cases the plans are not well communicated to the staff. As the year progresses the goals and strategies become lost in the daily grind of responding to unplanned events, or what we all know of as crisis management and then, it’s the end of the year.
That’s legitimate and to be expected actually, but that is exactly why the leadership group needs to keep the team on task and executing against the strategic plans.
So far it all sounds very methodical and impersonal. You have a plan, you follow it and you get the desired results. As we all know in the real business world it’s not like that, for at least two reasons.
First, a company is not executing their plan in a vacuum, or a business school. The global economy is changing at a frenetic pace and although you may want to achieve certain outcomes, everyone else outside of your company has their own plans to worry about and those do not include yours.
The second and by far more important is the fact that humans are required to carry out the plans. As we all know there are many reasons why on a given day, week or quarter an individual cannot deliver the results expected of them.
Career and Personal Strategic Plans
That’s enough about corporate strategic planning.
What about your career and personal strategic planning? Taking time at the end of the year to reflect on both is important to your future growth and happiness in work and life. Write down a set of annual goals for the coming year and then break those down into quarterly progress goals that will add up to the annual targets.
Then, this is where the power of strategic planning takes over the psyche, locate those goals in a place where you can see them every day and formally review those quarterly goals each week to be sure you are staying on course.
When the distractions start to develop, as you know they will, think of your goals and decide whether the item is going to get you to where you need to go, or whether it is not worth your time. Your plan and goals are like a filter that you apply to the incoming message – yes or no, in or out.
Some Younger Geospatial Professionals will be sharing their Career Diaries with you in the New Year as they go work through their career strategic plans. If you would like to share let us know.
I call it the “Magic of Strategic Planning.” Give it a try – it works!!
