Have you noticed how much productivity experts are in demand these days?
How popular blogs like zenhabits.com have become?
That everyone is trying to do more with less?
The Challenge
It's because we are all experiencing information and activity overwhelm on both personal and professional levels. And if you are a small or medium-size business owner, you can pretty safely take the average rate of overwhelm and double it. Between business development, marketing, minding the financials, and managing employee satisfaction and productivity there are really never enough hours in the day. There are always issues that need attention, and periods of relative "quiet" are fleeting at best. Hence the popular saying: "You are your own worst client."
Amidst day-to-day customer and operational issues, it's challenging to carve out time to stop (a luxury), reflect (what?), and yes...plan (gasp!). Yet it needs to be done.
Stephen Covey points out that we spend most of our time addressing "Urgent but not Important" tasks, e.g. phone calls, e-mail, little time-sensitive issues. And not nearly enough time on "Important but not Urgent" issues. That is...the stuff that really matters. What taking your business to the next level really means, and how you're going to set about doing it.
The Opportunity
The good news is that recognizing you'd like to implement planning as part of your overall business operations regimen is the foundation you need for getting started. In strategic planning, you generally re-group a core team of contributors to identify what you offer the market, who your market is, and what your value proposition to that market is. There are many ways to set about planning, but here is a simple framework:
- Set organizational vision and goals
- Conduct a standard SWOT analysis
- Conduct a gap analysis between current and ideal states
- Agree on organizational priorities
- Develop planning success metrics
There are enough approaches to fill a book so we won't discuss particulars here, but rather focus on the importance of keeping planning on the radar in order to stay competitive and evolve as an organization.
"Successful organizations plan for innovation and allocate resources to it."
~Paul Sloane, author and expert on leadership and creative thinking~
Most leading-edge organizations, like most leading-edge individuals, set aside time to plan for the future. And it needn't be an overproduced affair. You can start small...the important thing is to start once you recognize that you do have a desire to plan the evolution of your business.
That's not the tricky part, though. The tricky part is deciding how to start and then sticking with it. In my experience there are two basic approaches to strategic business planning: doing it in-house or outsourcing to a professional.
We'll explore all the detail and practical applications in the next post: "Strategic Business Planning: In-house or Outsource?"
Subsequently we will also address the next critical step: "How to Operationalize Strategic Business Planning."
Ms. Garza publishes this information to help companies and non-profit organizations market more successfully. If you find it helpful, please share.
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