Winners Plan and Planners Win
What does it really take to be successful in today’s fast paced, competitive business environment? Two important factors: 1) meticulously managing your day-to-day operations, and 2) planning for the future. However, long-term planning often gets shortchanged because of the rigors of managing the day-to-day running of the business.
Why is future planning important? Why should it not be put off any longer? Because, making strategic choices about the future state will focus the organization on doing the right things as well as doing things right. The strategic choices you make will help redirect, recharge and perhaps reinvent your business. Here are some important reasons to invest time and resources on developing a long-term strategy and actively managing it.
Change – Just when you think you know your business, something changes. Markets, customers, competitors, suppliers are constantly changing, and to be successful you need to adapt to succeed. Strategy management provides the visibility and understanding of your internal and external environment needed to anticipate and adapt to your changing environment.
Clarity – Every successful company is presented with a continuous stream of opportunities and the excitement of the moment could cause you to waste precious resources on the wrong things. Leaders need clearly stated (strategic) guidelines to help choose which opportunities it should pursue and improve the odds of creating value.
Communication –Employees often complain of a lack of communication from the top. People need to know what objectives the company is striving to achieve, and how they can contribute to the organization’s success. Raise the level of employee engagement by making strategy execution part of everyone’s day-to-day responsibility.
Celebrate– There is nothing better than celebrating achievements to inspire, energize, and motivate an organization. Having a long-term strategy and managing it actively provides the milestones and goals to regularly communicate and celebrate your company’s achievements.
Challenge – Growth is the lifeblood of every organization. Without it, your organization stagnates, and competition will overtake you. Staying at the top of your game depends on constantly providing your organization the opportunities to challenge the status quo and find new ways to compete and win.
In these times of uncertainty and accelerating change it is more important than ever to commit time and resources to develop a long-term strategy and manage it actively. We would like to hear from you about your experiences. And please feel free to pass this article along to others.
“In the current environment, companies can’t afford not to have a set of guiding principles…a system of core values that communicates ‘true north’ to the entire organization.” Orit Gadiesh, Chairman, Bain & Co., Boston
Recent Posts
Contact