The past three years have led organizations through one disruption after another. Leaders had come to believe that proactive planning and decision making were made impossible by the roller coaster environment. More than ever, proactive planning around strategy and execution is vitally important. Customers, suppliers, stakeholders, and employees at all levels of the organization are in dire need of rejuvenation that comes with sound organizational direction and stability. Four questions we should be asking to help build an intentional strategy are:
1) Where are you now?
The upheaval of recent years brought significant changes to supply chains, markets, HR and work practices, technology, as well as stakeholder and shareholder expectations. It’s important to evaluate all your business practices and identify past mistakes and successes.
2) Where do you go from here?
It’s time to make strategic planning more intentional again. Identifying the future state of your organization is not going to be as easy as it was in the past. There won’t be simple incremental changes to make. Markets have changed, supply chains have been disrupted, stakeholders and shareholders are now vitally concerned about meaningful organizational purpose and vision than ever before, and when it comes to Human Resources, researchers tell us that we will never go back to where we were before COVID. For many organizations, it’s time to re-evaluate organizational values, mission, vision, and company purpose to move forward successfully in 2024 and beyond. Clearly define where you want to be related to products, services, earnings, size, markets, customers, partners, and suppliers by some future point in time. It’s also time to re-frame your corporate purpose statement. All other strategies and plans should align with it.
3) What’s the gap and how do you address it?
Identify a specific path forward to get you from Point One to Point Two above. How can you align your organization so that everything you do is directly supporting your organization’s purpose and strategy? How can you get rid of the practices that are no longer useful? How can you be more innovative in pursuing markets and customers? Should you explore teaming with other organizations, or otherwise leverage synergies? How can you better align your human resources to help you achieve your goals?
An effective planning process identifies external and internal obstacles that will stand in the way of your organization reaching its goals. How can you address and overcome those potential obstacles? Should you build general contingency plans, where practical?
4) Does your organization have the structure and skills to get you there?
Once you define the “future state,” identify the needed resources to get you there. Is your organizational structure aligned, or is it cumbersome and outdated? What skills and competencies are needed to help you achieve that desired future state? How can you ensure you attract and keep ideal employees? What leadership competencies will you need in the future organization? They may be different from competencies your organization has now. What can you start doing immediately to address the needs of the future organization?
Asking these kinds of questions can help your organization strengthen the bottom line and achieve intentionality again in your strategic plans—all while improving and updating them for incredible future achievement, employee satisfaction, and customer loyalty.
For more information or for a complimentary 60-minute strategy session, please set a meeting, email me, and/or follow or message me in LinkedIn.